Yardley Green Hospital In 1901 a further outbreak of smallpox led to the purchase of another plot of land at Yardley Green where a new isolation hospital was built. Yardley Green Hospital treated about 500 cases of smallpox during its first five years but compulsory vaccination reduced the number of cases, and the hospital closed in 1907. The hospital was re-opened on 5th October 1910 with 50 beds for the treatment of tuberculosis. In 1912, the Public Health Committee proposed to enlarge the hospital to accommodate over 200 patients at a capital cost of £31,057 this was financed with the Government paying £90 per bed and the balance of £14,500 paid by Birmingham Corporation The hospital operated as an open-air clinic, with patients spending time outdoors and with sun-ray or artificial light treatment, in 1932 records show 16,376 attendances at Yardley Green Sanatorium for sun-ray treatment. In 1962, the hospitals at Yardley Green and Little Bromwich amalgamated to form East Birmingham Hospital.

BORDESLEY GREEN GAZETTE April 2014

History from Bordesley Green, The Ideal Village & Little Bromwich

CHRIS SUTTON: Crossover Resource & Learning Centre, 619 Bordesley Green, Birmingham, B9 5XZ. Tel: 0121 753 0668

Email: chris.sutton@stpaulscrossover.org.uk Facebook: Bordesley Green History Website: www.bghistory.org.uk

Little Bromwich Hospital

The first patients were admitted to the hospital on 29

th June 1895. The hospital was built on a

23 acre site at Yardley, purchased by Birmingham Corporation for a cost of £4,975. The original plans drawn up by W.H.Ward included 10 pavilions of 24 beds each but only 4 pavilions were built when the hospital opened. It was known as City Hospital, Little Bromwich, as all hospitals run by the City Corporation were prefixed City Hospital- followed the location, this was dropped with the inception of the NHS in 1948. The hospital was not intended to be constantly occupied, but to be used at times of any smallpox epidemic outbreak; this was later extended to include cases of measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria and tuberculosis. In 1901, the hospital was used during an outbreak of typhoid, cause by the consumption of mussels harvested from river estuaries contaminated with sewage. In 1904 the hospital at Little Bromwich was extended at a cost of £19,765 with the building of 3 further pavilions, an isolation ward and a home for fifty nurses, and again in 1910 further building increased it to 10 ward units with a capacity of about 300 beds. During the First World War the hospital was used for the treatment of soldiers with scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria and tuberculosis, and during 1916 there was a further outbreak of scarlet fever with 1232 cases admitted to the hospital. During the 1930’s the hospital expanded dramatically with the building of another fourteen wards increasing capacity to 750 beds. During the 1940’s and early 50’s due to better health care and living conditions the number of cases admitted declined, however in 1950 366 cases of polio were treated there, 46 of whom died. In 1948, when the NHS was formed Little Bromwich came under the control of Selly Oak Hospital Management Committee along with the Accident and Royal Orthopaedic Hospitals. With the decrease in infectious diseases, ward space at Little Bromwich became available and some services were moved from Selly Oak. In June 1951 a ward was opened for Ophthalmology, using a theatre already available. The same year wards began to be used as convalescent wards for patients recovering from medical and surgical treatment at Selly Oak Hospital. By 1953, 500 beds were available for general hospital use, and the hospital was “generalised”, in collaboration with Selly Oak. In September of that year a gynaecology department was established which remained there until 1971 when it moved to Marston Green. During the period 1959-61, over £380,000 was spent to improve facilities as a general hospital. (continued overleaf)

SICK NOTES FROM BORDESLEY GREEN Many thanks to all of you for your good wishes after my recent illness. Having spent a year writing about Bordesley Green there was one place that I hadn’t got round to covering – so I decided to check into Heartlands Hospital for myself! I say Heartlands but to anyone over a certain age it will always be the East Birmingham. This hospital was in fact an amalgamation of two existing hospitals in the area, both with long rich histories of their own. For many people Bordesley Green and Little Bromwich will always be associated strongly with these hospitals which have dominated the area.

175 Green Lane – Henshaw’s home

(continued) In 1962, a new management committee was set up to manage Little Bromwich Hospital, together with Yardley Green (see separate panel story), Hollymoor, Solihull, Witton and Marston Green Hospitals, and on the 1

st April 1963, East Birmingham Hospital was created

with the union of Little Bromwich and Yardley Green Hospitals, and by 1964 was dealing with over 10,000 patients per year. Over the next 30 years, the hospital continued to grow with the demolition of the older blocks and the up-grading of others, and on the 1

st April

1992, it received trust status and became Birmingham Heartlands Hospital.

Patient Records Margaret Day remembers when it was turned into a general hospital (Little Bromwich). “Previously it had been called the Fever Hospital. My uncle was in there in 1911 with scarlet fever. Just after it became a general hospital l had my appendix out there in 1955. The wards were all single storey just as they had been for isolation. Therefore for an operation one had to be transported round to the Theatre in an ambulance. Quite a bumpy ride”. Rifat Asghar-Hussain recalls: “ My dad was in the TB hospital on Yardley Green Road about 35 years ago. He was in there for months, but they managed to treat him... forever grateful”.

Linda Croton used to work at the East Birmingham and also remembers all those single storey wards well. Linda says she “Doesn’t think the OPD has changed in years.” and wonders if anyone “Remembers the Pennypincher shop- think it was by the Porters Lodge?”

The last case of Smallpox comes to Bordesley Green September 1978 saw a news story that shocked Britain. A laboratory accident at the University of Birmingham Medical School saw the temporary release of the Smallpox virus. Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants named Variola major and Variola minor. It can be traced back 10,000 years and has killed millions of people up until its official eradication in 1979. The laboratory at Birmingham was conducting research on variants of smallpox virus known which were considered to be a threat to the success of the World Health Organisation's smallpox eradication programme. Janet Parker was a medical photographer who became the last person to date to die from the disease. She was accidentally exposed to a strain of smallpox that was grown in a research laboratory on the floor below the Anatomy Department where she worked. Her death led to the suicide of the Head of the Microbiology Department, Professor Henry Bedson. Miss Parker was admitted to East Birmingham (now Heartlands) Hospital on 24 August and a clinical diagnosis was made of Variola major, the most serious type of Smallpox.

Above: The ward where Janet Parker was admitted. It was subsequently demolished. The next day, poxvirus infection was confirmed. Janet Parker was transferred to Catherine-de-Barnes, (then an isolation hospital) where she died on 11th September 1978. Many people had close contact with Parker before she was admitted, but only her mother contracted the disease. Her mother, Hilda survived, but her father, Frederick Witcomb, sadly died aged 77 following a cardiac arrest when visiting Parker in hospital. Her other close contacts, including two Biomedical Scientists, from the Birmingham Regional Virus Laboratory based at East Birmingham Hospital, were released from quarantine in Catherine-de-Barnes on 10th October 1978.

BORDESLEY GREEN AT WAR The project to list all the men from Bordesley Green who died as a result of serving in the First World War is underway. We already have many names, which in itself makes for sobering reading. There are many more to be added yet. From next month we will be featuring these names here, along with details of those who were fortunate to come back home.