NOTTINGHAM GENERAL HOSPITAL: Personal Reflections John Bittiner and David Lowe Nottingham General Hospital: Personal Reflections – Twenty-two years on! Nottingham General Hospital: Personal Reflections, was a book written by Nottingham Evening Post reporter David Lowe and retired Consultant Physician Dr John Bittiner. A book still very much in demand, it was first published in 1990, its aim being to tell the story of the Nottingham General Hospital through personal reflections and written historical documents Although it is now over twenty years since the General Hospital closed its doors, and little remains of what was once a thriving hospital, for those who remember the place, especially its former members of staff, the memory of the place still has a warm feeling of nostalgia. Come across any former members of staff and pretty soon you will hear them all swopping stories and anecdotes about the time they worked there, and if they were there at the time, the closure, which was announced in 1989. Although closure was inevitable, as its acute services had all but transferred to the Queen’s Medical Centre, with just the Radiotherapy and Oncology Department awaiting transfer to the City Hospital, and the services that were left, which was healthcare of the elderly, were also waiting transfer to newer premises, it still came as a bitter blow, as it was felt management at the time didn’t take into consideration the many years of dedicated service staff had given to the place, and that some members of staff were about to face an uncertain future. As you will see as you read through the book, in later chapters, the concerns of staff are expressed, as they begin to wonder what is to happen to them, as they leave their familiar surroundings of the General Hospital, as their department is about to be transferred to the Queen’s Medical Centre! As an example, you will come across remarks made by many consultant surgeons and physicians of the time, that the General Hospital was too small, and there was not enough bed space for the increasing demands placed on their services, and that transferring to the Queen’s Medical Centre will allow them to expand. However, the one remark that is in common with those who were facing transfer was the hope that everything will be just the same as it was at the General in the new premises of the Queen’s Medical Centre! 1 As patients and in particular staff were about to step into the brave new world that was the Queen’s Medical Centre, in a sense, what this book captured was the ‘mood of the of the moment,’ the mood of the moment being, ‘the fear of the future’. The General Hospital with a history that spanned over two centuries and had seen many changes, including two world wars and the inception of the National Health Service, and was therefore considered part of Nottingham’s heritage. So the thought of there being no General Hospital was, for the citizens of Nottingham, anathema. As was said at the time, ‘Alright the hospital buildings maybe crumbling a bit, they can still be done up, besides but we love the old place. Anyway, things won’t be the same in the new place!’ Also, what gave the General it’s ‘uniqueness,’ was its location at the top of Park Row and at the corner of the Ropewalk, adjacent to the centre of Nottingham, which was convenient for staff and patients alike. Unlike the QMC which is further out on the western fringes of the city, sandwiched between Lenton, Dunkirk and Wollaton. With the Queen’s Medical Centre soon to be celebrating its 40th anniversary and the General Hospital’s closure over twenty years ago, other views expressed at the time like the ‘QMC is too big,’ or: ‘It won’t have the same friendly atmosphere as the General,’ are, becoming like the General Hospital, a distant memory. In a way, we have become used to the Queen’s Medical Centre, and we take it, like all hospital services, very much for granted. For example, the sprawling 42 acres that is the Queen’s Medical Centre campus has, since it was opened by Her Majesty the Queen on Thursday 28th July, 1977, seen many extensions and additions to the care it provides. So much so, that the old adage of: ‘The QMC is too big,’ has been superseded with: ‘The QMC isn’t big enough!’ When the General Hospital was at the height of its powers, it occupied a site of just three acres. The same could be said for the Nottingham Children’s Hospital, Forest House, which transferred to the QMC in early 1979 and the Women’s Hospital on Peel Street, which transferred to the QMC in 1982, they were all built on small plots of land, making expansion, by today’s standards, almost impossible. Like the General, they too had a similar history, in as much as they were, before the inception of the National Health Service in 1948, voluntary hospitals. In other words, for their upkeep they relied entirely on public donations. Like the staff from the General Hospital, staff from both the Children’s and Women’s Hospitals also voiced similar concerns when they too faced transfer to the QMC. Also, like the General, with the length of time since both hospitals transferred to the QMC, between the late 1970s and early 1980s, they too are becoming a distant memory. As a footnote to the General Hospitals uniqueness, it was a hospital that never knew the political changes that have altered the course of history that is the National Health Service. With just a foot note in the bibliography section and additional photographs that were unavailable at the time, I have made no attempt to alter the original text. Therefore, with a time span of twenty-five years to date, you will see just how much the National Health Service has changed since this book was published in 1990. With 21st century commercialisation of many of the NHS’s services, hospitals like the General represented an age of deference, when those in charge gave orders that were never challenged, and an era when the world moved at a much slower pace, before time management became the order of the day. 2 2012: Former Nottingham General Hospital, since renamed Royal Standard Court As owning a book of this nature is becoming increasingly harder to come by, and transcribing and reproducing from an original copy is no substitute for actually owning a copy, I would like to thank David Lowe, whom I’ve worked with on numerous occasions, for allowing me to transcribe Nottingham General Hospital: Personal Reflections and publish an online version of the book through the Nottingham Hospitals History website. Paul R. Swift BA Honorary Archivist, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust 27 June, 2015 _______________ Originally published in 1990 by Special Trustees for Nottingham University Hospitals FORWARD Nottingham General Hospital has served the community with great distinction for more than two centuries. It has earned great admiration and intense loyal support from patients, citizens and staff. It has always had an important educational and training role. For a decade it played a vital part in launching the new medical school. Already nearly bursting at the seams on its central but very restricted site it built new office and laboratory accommodation to enable the University's professors of medicine and surgery to take up their appointments, despite the delays in building University Hospital. In 1973 it agreed to accept for clinical teaching one half of the medical students. Although the numbers were perforce small, new doctors graduated as planned in 1975. In due course the General made a contribution to the initial staffing of University Hospital. The Special Trustees for Nottingham University Hospitals wished the story of the Hospital to be brought up to date before its final closure, and this book is the result. Dr John Bittiner is a former senior and long serving member of the consultant staff of the hospital, with an intimate knowledge of it. From 1983-84 he was President of the Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Society, founded in 1828. Mr David Lowe is an experienced professional journalist and author and health correspondent of the Nottingham Evening Post. Rather than writing measured sequential history, they have, with the generous help of many members and former members of staff and others, depicted the General Hospital by a vivid patchwork quilt of personal recollections. In doing so they have brilliantly captured its spirit. 3 The spirit and work of a hospital is more important than the bricks and mortar. Fortunately the tradition of dedication and service of the General Hospital live on with greatly enhanced facilities and opportunities in other Nottingham Hospitals. David Greenfield Chairman, Special Trustees PREFACE Nearly everyone in Nottingham above the age of adolescence will have a personal recollection of the General Hospital. My first encounter was as an anxious eight-year-old waiting in the long queue of children to see the man with a light on his head. I now realise he must have been an ear, nose and throat consultant. Much to my mother's displeasure, the specialist said I didn't need my tonsils or adenoids removed. A few years later I was back again – this time as an in-patient to have those troublesome tonsils whipped out. Memories of my only stay in hospital is somewhat hazy. White tiles on the corridor walls, fish for Saturday night supper and wondering why the lavish helpings of ice cream I'd been promised to ease the post-operative sore throat failed to arrive.