Description Of The New Hospital

The new hospital site was on the north-west side of Badsley Moor Lane about 1 mile away from the town centre. The ward blocks were divided into male and female accommodation with a total of 66 beds. These wards consisted of the following buildings: administrative block, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, and diphtheria pavilions, observation block, porter’s lodge, and a block comprising laundry, mortuary, ambulance shed, engine and boiler rooms, disinfecting rooms, and discharge rooms. The different buildings were built mainly from local bricks, with Mattock stone dressing. All the roofs were covered with the best Penrhyn slates. The contractors for the building were William Thornton and Son of Rotherham. The roads and paths were covered with fine granite shingle and the ground was laid out with plants and shrubs.

The administrative block and observation wards occupied the front position. The ground floor accommodation consists of the Medical Officer’s department, including Medical Official officer's committee room, dispensary, bacteriological laboratory, Matrons dinning and recreation rooms. There was also the well-fitted kitchen and scullery storerooms and pantries. A marble floor corridor lead onto a separate staircase. Plain white walls decorated the interior of the hospital the interior woodwork was varnished pitch pine. On the first floor were fifteen bedrooms, each with a bathroom and hot and cold water, as well as a lavatory. A long corridor divided the front and back portions. Hot water radiators heated both the downstairs and upstairs corridors. Separate staircases were provided for nurses and maids. The whole building was lit by electricity from the corporation electrical works. This was a still a novelty, as most people had never seen electricity, most buildings or houses were still lit by gas. A telephone was something else that caused a stir around Rotherham; telephones connected the administrative block with each of the wards as well as the National Telephone Exchange.

The main entrance to each block was from the front and led into a spacious lobby from which access could be gained onto the wards. Each ward had a bathroom kitchen and storeroom. Glass covered verandas in front allowed convalescent patients to obtain fresh air, sunshine, and shelter. The wards were heated with double coal fires with ascending flues; hot air chambers at the back of each stove. Ventilation was by shafts in the ceiling and extracts on the ridges. Fresh air inlets were under each bed, which would have wall space of 12 feet dividing the beds. The highly polished floors were in pitch pine. A thick dado rail lined the full length of the room; all the splays to the windows had rounded finishing. All the internal angles in floors, walls, and ceilings are curved, and the external bull nosed, so as to prevent any lodgement of dust or germs and the same care was observed in the woodwork. Private wards were provided to each block, with a separate entrance. Large glass windows gave nurses on duty a complete view of all the wards, and better observation to each patient.

Scarlet Fever And Diptheria Block The Scarlet Fever Block had two wards, one for acute patients with accommodation for 18 beds and another 16 beds for more milder cases. The two small wards had a side room that had a separate entrance. These side rooms were used in the special cases were their illness required them to be away from others patients. The Diphtheria Block had a similar arrangement to the Scarlet fever block, but the main wards only had six beds in each area one of the small wards was fitted up for use as an operating room in cases of tracheotomy. The Typhoid fever block built on the principles as the above wards with a similar operating side room as the Diphtheria block. The first patient to be admitted into the hospital entered this ward. It was a daughter of one of the members of the Corporation.

Observation Block The Observation Block had two small wards containing two beds in each, its purpose was for isolating cases of whose nature there was any doubt until the diagnosis was finally settled by the aid of bacteriology and clinical observation. The Laundry Block comprised of a wash house and sorting room, fitted with washing machines, rinses and bluer, centrifugal drying machine, drying closet, and other up-to-date appliances all driven by a steam engine of five horse-power. The steam being developed in the two Cornish boilers with which the boiler house is fitted. Part of the block contains the steam disinfector that is fixed onto the wall between two rooms into one of which infected clothing was brought from the other the clothing is removed after passing through the disinfector.

At one end of the Block were the ambulance shed and stables, as the motor ambulance did not come into force until much later. At the other side were the discharge block and mortuary. The discharge block which consists of three rooms, would be the last area the patient would see. Patients would be undressed and bathed in disinfectant, they would then change into their outdoor clothes that had previously been disinfected. There was also a waiting room for the friends and families of patients being discharged.

The small mortuary was so arranged with a waiting area with a large glass screen looking onto another room where relatives and friends could view the deceased without worries of catching any infection.