Temporary Hospital

Dr. Hardwick, for many years Medical Officer of Health for Rotherham, first called the attention of the council as far back as 1885 to the necessity of providing a hospital for infectious diseases. During 1887 as the whole of Rotherham celebrated Queen Victorias' Golden Jubilee an epidemic of smallpox tainted everyone's spirits. The epidemic had first occurred in the borough in January at Parkgate where in a matter of no time, 88 cases had been diagnosed. By February more and more cases had started to occur in Rotherham. The Town Hall Council Committee on public health forwarded a letter to the Local Government Board as to the possibility of a fever hospital for the borough. As the epidemic continued, most patients were isolated and nursed by family and friends within their own homes. Some medical care may have been given but this was often expensive and beyond most peoples income. The workhouse infirmary had taken some of the more serious cases of smallpox that were occurring in the borough. This hospital was part of the workhouse on Alma Road it would later also to be known as the Municipal General Hospital and later still as Moorgate Hospital.

By September a wooden structure had been erected on a piece of common land across the road from Badsley Moor farm. This farm land would later be used to erect the more permanent hospital we know today. The temporary wooden structure consisted of two medical wards, these wards were 66 by 44 feet and held up to twenty patients with infectious diseases. Two passages led down both sides of the wards allowing nurses easy access to care for very ill patients. Two large heating stoves kept the wards warm and comfortable. The small kitchen with a large cooking stove with a new set of pots and pans lay in wait for its first patients. The hospital was not quite ready as men were still laying water and gas pipes when Rotherham reported another smallpox outbreak. The need to finish the new fever hospital became increasingly urgent as 26 new cases in 24 houses in the borough were reported. As the new hospital was opened the only people present to welcome the first patient, was the Mayor of Rotherham Colonel C. J. Stoddart. and Dr. Ernest Knight.

A smallpox patient As the end of September 1887 loomed, the Mayor of the time Colonel C. J. Stoddart, thanked the people in “The Rotherham Advertiser” for their generous gifts of books, pictures and old clean linen for the new hospital. The new fever hospital (as it was known then) mainly treated smallpox patients although people with other infectious diseases were also treated there. Smallpox in its acute stage often made patients extremely ill, the best treatment that could be given was to put patients to bed and isolate them with medical care. Unfortunately, even with medical care that was about towards the end of the eighteenth century one third of patients would die. The patients would be covered in a red and swollen rash that would also infect the mouth and throat. The irritated skin would be so itchy that nothing would seem to soothe it. The sharp rise of temperature caused patients to shiver and sometimes vomit, they often suffered severe headache and backache. The illness would last about three weeks but could go on as long as ten. Around the twelfth day crusts formed on the pustules and would then dry up, the patients temperature would then start to drop. When the scabs fell off, each one left a pitted scar or “pock” that was a well-known sign that a person had had smallpox. The patient would be classed as infected until the last scab had separated from the skin.

When the hospital was first opened it was common practice to charge patients for treatment with the result that many infectious cases were treated at home. The charge of two or three Guineas a week during several weeks was beyond the means of an ordinary working man. As the council did not bear the cost at this time to treat infectious diseases, it was difficult to safeguard the community.

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