Stobhill Hospital

Stobhill Hospital is currently a general hospital with a 24-hour Casualty facility, it is located in the district of Springburn in the North of Glasgow. It serves the population of North Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire. The hospital was originally built as a Poor Law Hospital by the Glasgow Parish Council, designed by Glasgow architects, Thomson & Sandilands, and was formally opened in September 1904 with a complement of 1867 beds organised in several two-storey Nightingale ward blocks on a sprawling, 47 acre campus on the outskirts of the city. The Caledonian Railway also built a branch line to transport coal and supplies to the hospital, running through the suburb of Balornock into the hospital. The cost of the building was £250000, and also featured a large clocktower at the centre of the site. At its opening, Stobhill Hospital was hailed to be one of the showpieces of modern 20th century healthcare in Glasgow.

In September 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, the hospital was requisitioned by the Royal Army Medical Corps and wounded servicemen arrived by specially converted 'ambulance trains' terminating at a temporary railway platform built within the hospital grounds. A staff of 240 nurses as well as volunteers from the St. Andrew's Ambulance Association cared for over 1000 patients at any given time, until the return of the hospital to civilian use in the spring of 1920.

In 1928 a new radiology department was opened and Stobhill became a general hospital in 1929. In 1930 Stobhill came under the control of the Glasgow Corporation. In 1931 a maternity unit opened. Stobhill became a teaching hospital in 1937 with the arrival of Noah Morris, Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Glasgow. In 1948 it was transferred to the National Health Service, under the Board of Management for Glasgow Northern Hospitals, and designated one of the 5 major central hospitals of the new Western Regional Hospital Board.

Several upgrades and extensions followed, including a ground-breaking geriatric unit, which opened in 1953, a new pharmacy in 1961, a premature baby ward in 1962, the Edward Unit for Mothers and Babies in 1963, a staff library in 1964, the Clinical Teaching Centre and the Group Training School in 1967 and a modern Pathology Department in 1968. A new Operating Theatre and postgraduate medical complex opened in 1970, although the bed complement had dropped below 1,000 by 1965. With the reorganisation of the National Health Service in 1974, Stobhill became the responsibility of the Northern District of the Greater Glasgow Health Board. A 52 bed Marie Curie Cancer Care hospice was opened adjacent to the hospital in 1976. The closure of the maternity unit, leaving Stobhill as a general and geriatric medicine hospital, was agreed in 1992. Responsibility for the management of Stobhill passed to the Stobhill NHS Trust in 1993. In 1999 this Trust was replaced by the larger North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust which also includes Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Western Infirmary, Gartnavel General Hospital and the Dental Hospital.

New Stobhill Campus

There has been controversy over the results of a three year consultation, published in 2002, the Greater Glasgow's Acute Services Review by NHS Greater Glasgow, in which it was decided to downgrade facilities at the hospital and replace it with a £100million outpatient Ambulatory care facility - due to open in 2009, which will result in the nearest Accident and Emergency and inpatient facilities being located at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in the city centre. The new hospital will cover four floors, and in addition to the existing outpatient clinics, day surgery and diagnostic services, it will also provide a number of specialist health services such as cardiology, renal dialysis and gynaecology. It will also have 12 short stay surgical beds, which will enable clinicians to extend the range of nominally outpatient surgical procedures offered within the new hospital. It will also have a minor injuries unit. Another component of the new Stobhill will be the development of a 111-bed inpatient Psychiatric hospital at the site. This resulted in Jean Turner's election as the Independent Member of the Scottish Parliament for Strathkelvin and Bearsden on this single issue in 2003.

*Eriskay House, a 15-bed inpatient ward opened in October 2004 as an addition to the existing MacKinnon House adult inpatient mental health unit. This purpose-built ward, which replaces inpatient services at the former Parkhead and Ruchill hospitals, provides a wide range of services for patients with drug and alcohol problems.

*Another phase of this new project, the £18m Rowanbank Clinic, opened in July 2007. It is a new 74-bed mental health secure care centre, which will become fully operational on a phased basis over the next 18 months. This new £18m facility will dramatically improve services for people with mental health problems who may pose a risk to others or have the potential to commit an offence because they are mentally ill. It will provide specialist treatment and support in modern, purpose-built accommodation designed to meet the specific needs of patients and staff.

*An additional facility, Skye House, will open in late 2007 and replaces an existing interim facility for young people at Gartnavel Royal Hospital. Housing 24 beds, the £7m purpose-built unit will have separate residential, educational and therapeutic facilities and has been specifically designed to meet the needs of young people who need inpatient mental health care.

*Work has already begun on the new Ambulatory Care and Diagnostic Facility, three old ward blocks on the site have been demolished, and work has been completed on the groundworks and drainage, with the external framework taking shape. It is estimated that from 2009, the hospital will care for 400,000 patients annually from the North and East of Glasgow, East Dunbartonshire and further afield. The new facility will concentrate on general outpatient and diagnostic services, physiotherapy, podiatry, occupational therapy, dietetics, speech and language therapy, renal dialysis, heart and lung investigations, cardiac rehabilitation, elderly day care, diabetic care, a chronic pain service, x-rays, CT scans, MRI scans, ophthalmology, dentistry, ENT and audiology, gynaecology investigations, haematology and dermatology. It will be one of Scotland’s largest hospitals covering four floors and an area the size of 30,000 square metres.

*Marie Curie Cancer Care is building a brand new purpose-built hospice at Stobhill. The charity plans to start building the new hospice in 2007 and hopes to complete it in 2008. The new 30 roomed hospice will replace the charity’s existing building in nearby Belmont Road which cares for more than 1,200 patients and their families each year.

Trivia

Richard Wilson, OBE worked as a lab technician at the hospital for several years before becoming an actor.

Alasdair Gray's 1981 novel "Lanark" features a complex, rambling building called The Institute which the author states was physically inspired by Stobhill and BBC Television Centre in London.

A poem was written about Stobhill by the scottish poet Edwin Morgan. It was based on a true story, about a girl who became pregnant and had to get it aborted. When the baby was delivered it was dead, so while on its way to the ininerator it was ressusitated. Nobody knows what happened to the baby or what happened to the news paper that wrote about it.

Stobhill lacks the traditional "hospital smell" in much of its main building, due to ongoing construction and a café which gives off a smell of fried food.

Craig Ferguson, host of The Late, Late Show, was born at Stobhill Hospital on May 17, 1962.

External links

* [http://www.nhsggc.org.uk/content/default.asp?page=s762&loc_id=12 Stobhill Hospital]
* [http://www.richardwilsonarchive.com/bio.htm Richard Wilson Archive]