Liverpool Hospitals - Women's Hospital

 

 

The origins of the Women's Hospital lies over two hundred years ago, when a group of philanthropic Liverpool ladies set up a Ladies' Charity providing maternal health care in people's homes in 1796, although this was only for "reputable married women and widows resident in the town. The care involved a doctor and midwife visiting patients in their home, and the service continued for nearly 90 years. In the 19th, and the first half of the 20th century, everybody knew about death in childbirth, particularly those women who were about to go through the process. Death in relation to childbirth was mostly in fit young women who had been quite well before becoming pregnant. They died, often leaving the baby, and other children in the family from previous births, with a widowed husband. This care became open to all women in 1841 before in 1846 the council opened the first Lying-inn (maternity) hospital on Brownlow Hill, near where today's Women's Hospital now stands and where originally special diseases of women were treated. This would mean that concerns about the infection of maternity patients by operative cases were brought to an end in 1879. By January 1883 a Committee had begun raising funds in aid of a Special Hospital for Women and by May 1883 over £5000 had been raised and good premises found at 107 and 109 Shaw Street where The Special Hospital for Women was opened on the 10th of August 1883 by the Countess of Sefton. The following year Brownlow Lying–in hospital was opened as an amalgamation of the capabilities of the Ladies' Charity and original Lying-in hospital. In 1895, as interest in the specialist treatment for women increased, the Samaritan Hospital for Women opens in Upper Warwick Street, moving to Upper Parliament Street just five years later in 1900. It was in the early 1920s that plans to merge the two hospitals were at an advanced stage. 

Women's Hospital in Catherine Street

On the 14th of October 1926 the foundation stone of a new hospital building in Catharine Street was laid by the Lady Mayoress of Liverpool. The new building was to house the largest voluntary maternity hospital in Britain, a purpose-built hospital which was the amalgamation of the Shaw Street's Special Hospital for Women and the Samaritan Hospital for Women. It was designed by Edmund Kirby and Sons and despite the foundation stone laid in 1926, construction did not start until 1929. The hospital was originally designed for 132 beds which included private wards and was officially opened by the then Duchess of York on the 21st of June 1932 as the Liverpool and Samaritan Hospital for Women but was renamed the Women's Hospital in December 1932. The hospital comprised a Neo-Georgian style administration block connected by a four storey covered way to a U-shaped block with a pair of pavilion ward blocks linked by a range including operating theatres. There was also a separate mortuary block. The four storey administration block was constructed of brick, with a 21 bay long front elevation which had a rusticated brick ground floor, moulded first floor stone bands and a modillioned cornice. The central front door had a stone Gibbs surround and a balustrated parapet. All except the second floor housed administratrive departments including staff accommodation and a board room. Private wards and associated rooms were found on the second floor. The pavilion ward blocks were partly three and partly four storeys high, built of brick with flat concrete roofs, and each ward held 18 beds. The mortuary was a single storey L-shaped brick built building with a Welsh Slate roof. 

 

It was in 1985 that the beginnings of today’s Liverpool Women’s Hospital began to take shape, when the Liverpool Obstetrics and Gynaecology Unit, which later becomes the NHS Trust we know today, took over the administration of Mill Road, the Women's Hospital and Liverpool Maternity Hospital. Then in 1995 the trust’s main services were combined in the new £30m hospital on Crown Street, designed by the Percy Thomas Partnership and constructed in red brick with white cladding and light blue metal roofs, it was opened with much fanfare. Princess Diana arrived, wearing an orange two-piece suit to declare the hospital officially open. A sculpture entitled 'Mother and Child' was erected outside the main entrance to the hospital in 1999 by Terry McDonald. This was a culmination of how the women in Liverpool had campaigned for baby clinics, for free maternity care and more throughout the first half of the 20th century. The trust itself went on to take over the Aintree Centre for Women’s Health, serving communities across Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley, a move which made it the largest women's hospital in Europe.

The previous site subsequently has been redeveloped for student accomodation, known as the Agnes Jones House. Redevelopment involved the demolition of all the hospital buildings except the former administration block.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/12/liverpool-hospitals-liverpool-lunatic.html