The Port Charles General Hospital has changed many times before the whole show began. 1855 marked its opening to the public after 14 years of slow, dramatic construction. 1862 marked the first building's burndown on a fire, probably because of nitrate. The second building was a considerable improvement when it was opened in 1869, but like the first building, it got burned down in 1890 due to nitrate and various deadly materials. Both were possibly intended to harbour people with life threatening abuses and conditions.
The modest third building was a much bigger improvement than the first two and still sits quite distantly from both, even though it opened in 1890. Its original name fore the first 28 years was the Bloodlust Sanatorium and Hospital, until it got renamed simply as the Shady Brook Sanatorium when the North Carolina flu pandemic was spreading worldwide. Sitting distantly from Shady Brook Sanatorium was the much larger first General Hospital building on a different, built from 1904 to 1910 and opened in 1911.
The first Shady Brook Sanatorium caught a fire and burned down in flames in 1925, due to various chemicals including nitrate, as many of its original residents had died by then. The second and current Brook Sanatorium was built in 1939, but did not open to the public until America entered World War 2, while the first General Hospital got demolished at the same time because it hid a lot of toxic materials inside.
Twelve years later, the second and current General Hospital building was built from 1946 to 1952 and then opened to the public in 1953. Like the second Shady Brook Sanatorium, it sits on a rather different location ever since.