There is still time to catch the V&A exhibition Ninewells Hospital: Care, Community and Innovation with contributions from the University Archives, Museums and School of Medicine. Celebrating last year’s 50th anniversary of the hospital, the show runs until 14th September.
Kenneth from the Archives outlines the history of health care in Dundee in this blog.
Dundee enjoys a strong reputation for medical research and innovation and has been home to many famous surgeons and physicians. Central to this tale of success is the fascinating history of two hospitals – Dundee Royal Infirmary and Ninewells Hospital.
Dundee Infirmary was Dundee’s first hospital in the modern sense of the term. It evolved from an earlier voluntary dispensary which provided medicine and medical care to people in Dundee. While such a body had first come into being in the 1730s, little is known of its subsequent history. In 1782 the Reverend Dr Robert Small, minister of the Parish of Dundee, and the surgeon Robert Stewart launched a new subscription to fund a voluntary dispensary. Following this, medical attendants were appointed to treat the “sick poor” of the burgh in their own homes. The dispensary was a success and saw over 5,000 patients treated in the next 12 years. In 1793 attention turned to building a hospital which would offer inpatient facilities. A site off King Street was acquired and a building was designed by the Edinburgh Architect John Paterson. Its foundation stone was laid in June 1794 and the Infirmary opened in 1798. Initially it had beds for just 56 patients, but the building of additional wings in the 1820s increased capacity this to 120 beds. By then it had become Dundee Royal Infirmary, following the granting of a Royal Charter.
Dundee’s rapidly expanding population meant that size of the Infirmary was soon inadequate for the demands it faced. While the idea of a establishing a second hospital in the west of the town was mooted, in 1851 it was finally decided that the Infirmary should move to much larger building on a bigger site near Dudhope Park. The foundation stone was laid in 1852 and the building opened in 1855. The old infirmary building was sold in 1857 for £3,000 and became a model lodging house, eventually being turned into Victoria Road School, finally being demolished in the 1970s.
The new DRI building could initially accommodate around 220 patients. As Dundee continued to grow, and medical science advanced, the site would be expanded several times. Significant additions over the years included the Caird Maternity and Cancer Hospitals (built 1897 -1907) and the Sharp Maternity Hospital (1930). By 1929, DRI treated over 10,000 patients a year. It had also become a major teaching hospital at the end of the nineteenth century following the establishment of the University of St Andrew’s Conjoint School of Medicine which was based at University College, Dundee.
The creation of NHS in 1948 saw all of Dundee’s hospitals become part of Eastern Regional Hospital Board. By the 1950s it was felt that Dundee needed a larger and more modern hospital. Around the same time plans to build a new college beside DRI were finally abandoned and it was eventually decided that a new hospital and medical school should be built. This scheme evolved into what would become Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. Its development proved to be a long process. Although designs for the hospital were ready in 1961 and was 1964 before work started on the site, with the foundation stone being laid the following year.
Construction took much longer than expected and it was 1974 before Ninewells treated its first patients. The hospital was the first completely new teaching hospital to be built in the UK since the nineteenth century and was the largest hospital in Scotland when it opened. This allowed the School of Medicine and what was now the University of Dundee to go from strength to strength.
The opening of Ninewells left a question mark over the future of DRI. From the start of the Ninewells project, it had been planned that either DRI or Maryfield Hospital (which had started life as the infirmary at the East Poorhouse) should close when the new hospital was ready. Although a scheme to modernise Maryfield and close DRI was seriously considered, in the end it was decided that DRI should be the hospital retained. While it lost some services to Ninewells, it kept others including the Casualty Department and Neurology. However, its future continued to be the subject of speculation. Eventually, in 1993, Tayside Health Board announced plans to close to DRI and move its remaining departments to an expanded Ninewells.
Proponents of the scheme argued that DRI’s facilities were out of date and needed to be replaced, while opponents criticised the fact that the overall number of beds would be reduced. The closure went ahead in 1998, 200 years after the King Street building had first opened its doors. Ninewells continued to expand, with the Maggies Centre and Carseview Centre being notable additions in the early 2000s, followed by a significant redevelopment and expansion of the Medical School.
If you would like to know more about the history of Dundee’s hospitals, Kenneth will be giving a talk on the subject at an event organised by the Friends of Broughty Library on 24 September.
