How old is your hospital?

PennyWise · Oct 9, 2012

Eeeh sonie, why my hospital is SO OLD.........it was around in those days when hospitals didn't just get whatever they wanted. They had to earn things. It walked to school, it didn't get to take no bus.......AND UPHILL BOTH WAYS. My hospitals parents didn't buy it no TV and video games..........it played baseball in the street with a stick and a rock, used cow flops to mark the bases. And my hospital didn't misbehave like today's young hospitals. If it did get outta line, it'd get beaten on the behind with a bat that had spikes, then would be sent to its room without dinner and would have to live on water and bread for three weeks........................

amoLucia · Oct 10, 2012

I'd venture to guess that there are quite a few OLD facilities around that have been torn down, rebuilt, renovated, etc. But I'd bet THE TUNNELS still exist somewhere dead-ending deep in the bowels of the earth beneath the buildings (and parking lots!). They used to be a major architectural blue-printed engineered requirement for institutions of that age.

I bet there's old tunnel systems under old universities and colleges, too. They were built with residential halls at the time.

allnurses Guide · Oct 10, 2012

I work PRN at the second oldest psychiatric facility in the country; it's in Kentucky.

It also has some extremely spooky tunnels; most were used by the nurses to return

to dormitories, but some apparently were used to house the worst of the worst

patients; there are still shackles on some of the walls. I unfortunately have never

had a chance to visit the tunnels and perhaps never will =(; there is construction

happening on the grounds, as the hospital is actually being turned into a campus

for our community college system, and the hospital is moving into a brand spanking

new building down the road. Because of the construction, some of the tunnels

are actually gone.

Fortunately, the oldest building is being preserved, but I hate that the hospital

is moving... I'm like you OP, I LOVE old buildings!

As for hauntings... they say, if you tear down a haunted building and put up a

brand new building on the same grounds, the new building will be haunted as

well. There's an old TB hospital here in KY that was just torn down (no it's not

Waverly Hills; it's a different one), and a new building is about to go up. Our

news station was talking to an expert in the paranormal, who stated that the

new building will be haunted by the same spirits that haunted the old building.

NevadaFighter, BSN, RN · Oct 10, 2012

Very interesting, NurseCard!

That is really sad that the hospital is moving, though! I feel for ya!

Streamline2010 · Oct 10, 2012

When I was a college student, I rented a room in the spare nurses dorm at Reading (PA) Hospital. Those buildings were all connected with tunnels, too. And the tunnel from our building was still stocked with steel barrels of water and I don't know what else, marked Civil Defense. The dorm buildings were built in the '20s or '30s, I imagine. The rooms were large, they had stained wood doors and casings, two locking closets per room, and a full bath (tiled floors and walls) for each room. The floors were hardwood, but covered by linoleum tiles by then. The nurse dorms were Buildings K and M of the Reading Hospital in West Reading. At that time, the RN school enrollment must have been low and M Bldg --was used for student nurses only, and K was a mix of offices and female college students. The elevators in those buildings had the old folding brass gate for the elevator car and then sliding doors to close off the elevator shaft. I don't know why I never took any pictures. I guess film was too expensive, lol. There was one of those old, old oak wheelchairs in there and it had a caned seat. We use to race up and down the halls with it at night. We also used to go prowl around the building and look in the office windows, too. They still had house mothers and very controlled access, so you couldn't get away with much. The rooms had no air conditioning, and then in winter the steam heat got really hot. It was hot in the summer and hot in the winter, too. :-D

http://www.readinghospital.org/images/Upload/2177h.jpg Buildings K and M are the two identical brick buildings at the lower left in that picture. Because I was just a renter, I didn't go over to the hospital much. But looking at it now, I can see that it really expanded to take over a whole city block.

The tunnels probably made it easier for Maintenance to move tools and equipment around, since they could roll stuff in over at the Hospital and then roll it or put it on forklift or a wagon and then drive it or tow it to a different building. Much easier than putting a big freight elevator in each building.

I hope this doesn't violate TOS but it's interesting: Hill View Manor in New Castle, PA is closed as a hospital now, but operates as a ghost-hunter attraction. http://www.pennsylvania-mountains-of-attractions.com/hill-view-manor-new-castle-pa.html You can Google for pics and videos. The buildings seem to be pretty much the same as they were left when the facility closed. My mother says the reason that all the equipment was left in the asylums and sanitariums is that if it was bought using any federal funds whatsoever, it can't be sold or reused. Sounds kind of wasteful to me. (shrug)

The asylum at Athens, OH was taken over by Ohio State U and restored for university use. http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridges.html

http://www.kirkbridebuildings.com/buildings/ might be of interest to you who like architecutre.

K+MgSO4, BSN · Oct 11, 2012

The local hospital where I grew up was a workhouse during the Great Famine. So at least from the 1830's. Obviously a big expansion at that point.

My father is part of the team of maintenance men who look after the Famine graveyard next to it. It is a massive communal burial area.

Anyhow the hospital developed into 3 wards. Medical, surgical and maternity. My dad had his tib fib repaired there in the 60's. However as time went on and GP's were not not allowed to operate (rural Ireland 1960's, not USA) the surgical ward closed. Then people started having OBs instead of GPs manage their pregnancy that ward went as well. The medical ward turned into a geriatric unit as the regional hospital had the funding and technology to look after pts.

It is now long term care, palliative care and transitional care. A lot of allied health services have taken rooms at the hospital though. The school dental program out pt rehab social work and psych services as well as the childhood immunisation program are run for the town from it.

It is a lovely sprawling single story sandstone building with verandas ans French doors and huge windows looking over farm land and the river. The mourge is tucked away in the back.

It is still referred to by some of the older generation as the workhouse. Usually in the context of "if you go into the workhouse you won't come out".