Sandwell Hospital
As an addition to the West Bromwich Union Workhouse, and spurred on by the 1867 Poor Law Act, the West Bromwich Union Infirmary was built in and opened in 1884 before separating away from the workhouse to become the Hallam Hospital in 1925 specialising in the treatment of infectious diseases.
The hospital would see major investment in the 1970s with numerous new structures housing new treatment spaces. Patients would be transferred in 1978 to the new departments with the early Hallam Hospital being re-used and the new site dubbed Sandwell District General Hospital.
The new A&E department
At around 14:15, on the 28th of July 2002, a fire broke out within the accident and emergency department of Sandwell hospital resulting in the evacuation of around 60 patients and staff and the urgent transfer of two patients to City Hospital.
The result was the largest fire in NHS history, the hunt for the supposed arsonist responsible, and an opportunity for improved facilities to be introduced.
By April 2005, the new "Emergency Services Unit" opened on the Sandwell site at a cost of around £19 Million. The new department was designed to treat and discharge patients within the unit as an alternative to transferring most A&E admissions into the main hospital, housing its own specialised heart and children's unit.
The forthcoming Midland Metropolitan Hospital, sometimes dubbed as the Birmingham "Super Hospital", would threaten closure of the department at Sandwell with the hospital poised to become a non-emergency treatment centre by 2020. However, due to the collapse of Carillion and numerous other delays, the A&E department would be granted a stay of execution until eventually shuttering on the 6th of October 2024.
The emergency block has been earmarked for re-use into a urgent treatment centre.
The visit.
Visited with: @UrbandonedTeam @jtza and @huyt.urb
After an interesting morning at the former City Hospital, we jumped into our cars and began to look over the other nearby sites on our to-do lists. After a quick breakfast, we aimed towards Sandwell for a recce of the supposedly closed emergency department.
Our initial expectations were slightly low as the hospital was already quite busy and no obvious way in presented itself. As we prepared to walk back to the cars in the now pouring rain, it soon became apparent that we'd need to now pay for parking.
Surprisingly, within less than a month, the whole area felt quite empty with a large amount of stuff removed a ceiling tiles removed to expose wiring.
The main admissions area was almost entirely stripped of IT equipment and beds.
I'm not quite sure what these are.
A peek through the corridors proved slightly tense, knowing that we could very easily bump into staff accessing other parts of the site.
Waiting rooms
Annoyingly, a lot of the doors marked with interesting stuff were mag-locked tight which made us have to search quite hard for an X-Ray of CT scanner.
A lot of the remaining stuff comprised of wards and the usual side-rooms.
Some beds did remain, which is always a pleasant sight.
By this point, we were searching for some of the more surgical areas such as resus and perhaps a theatre. Annoying, we didn't come across either although a small examination room did hold a nice old ALM lamp.
After thoroughly searching around for anything else interesting and eventually getting bored of the constant barrage of locked doors we headed off North.
Anyway, that'll be all.
KP_
As an addition to the West Bromwich Union Workhouse, and spurred on by the 1867 Poor Law Act, the West Bromwich Union Infirmary was built in and opened in 1884 before separating away from the workhouse to become the Hallam Hospital in 1925 specialising in the treatment of infectious diseases.
The hospital would see major investment in the 1970s with numerous new structures housing new treatment spaces. Patients would be transferred in 1978 to the new departments with the early Hallam Hospital being re-used and the new site dubbed Sandwell District General Hospital.
The new A&E department
At around 14:15, on the 28th of July 2002, a fire broke out within the accident and emergency department of Sandwell hospital resulting in the evacuation of around 60 patients and staff and the urgent transfer of two patients to City Hospital.
The result was the largest fire in NHS history, the hunt for the supposed arsonist responsible, and an opportunity for improved facilities to be introduced.
By April 2005, the new "Emergency Services Unit" opened on the Sandwell site at a cost of around £19 Million. The new department was designed to treat and discharge patients within the unit as an alternative to transferring most A&E admissions into the main hospital, housing its own specialised heart and children's unit.
The forthcoming Midland Metropolitan Hospital, sometimes dubbed as the Birmingham "Super Hospital", would threaten closure of the department at Sandwell with the hospital poised to become a non-emergency treatment centre by 2020. However, due to the collapse of Carillion and numerous other delays, the A&E department would be granted a stay of execution until eventually shuttering on the 6th of October 2024.
The emergency block has been earmarked for re-use into a urgent treatment centre.
The visit.
Visited with: @UrbandonedTeam @jtza and @huyt.urb
After an interesting morning at the former City Hospital, we jumped into our cars and began to look over the other nearby sites on our to-do lists. After a quick breakfast, we aimed towards Sandwell for a recce of the supposedly closed emergency department.
Our initial expectations were slightly low as the hospital was already quite busy and no obvious way in presented itself. As we prepared to walk back to the cars in the now pouring rain, it soon became apparent that we'd need to now pay for parking.
Surprisingly, within less than a month, the whole area felt quite empty with a large amount of stuff removed a ceiling tiles removed to expose wiring.
The main admissions area was almost entirely stripped of IT equipment and beds.
I'm not quite sure what these are.
A peek through the corridors proved slightly tense, knowing that we could very easily bump into staff accessing other parts of the site.
Waiting rooms
Annoyingly, a lot of the doors marked with interesting stuff were mag-locked tight which made us have to search quite hard for an X-Ray of CT scanner.
A lot of the remaining stuff comprised of wards and the usual side-rooms.
Some beds did remain, which is always a pleasant sight.
By this point, we were searching for some of the more surgical areas such as resus and perhaps a theatre. Annoying, we didn't come across either although a small examination room did hold a nice old ALM lamp.
After thoroughly searching around for anything else interesting and eventually getting bored of the constant barrage of locked doors we headed off North.
Anyway, that'll be all.
KP_
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