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A municipal hospital is a hospital under the control of a local government, as opposed to those run commercially, by some sort of charitable organisation, or by national or state governments.
In many countries the different sorts of organisations exist together. Sometimes the different types are in some way complementary. Municipal hospitals commonly offer services free or at low cost for the poorer members of their community. Local authorities in urban areas commonly built hospitals in the nineteenth century either to deal with the threat of smallpox or as shelters for the poor and homeless. Psychiatric hospitals were often established by local government.