HARLOW WOOD ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL.

AN interesting ceremony took place on August 3rd, when Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York opened the Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital, near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. This hospital is situated on an admirable site in one of the fringes of Sherwood Forest, and will be able to serve not only a large agricultural area, but some of the most populous districts in the East Midlands. Its establishment was made possible by the generous contributions and-the patient efforts of a large number of persons in the East Midlands who were resolved to create a modern and fully equipped orthopaedic hospital where treatment could be given on open air lines. It is true that the
hospital has not been opened free from debt, but what debt there is will soon be cleared if the
present stream of contributions is maintained.

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The inset photograph gives a general idea of the arrangement of the buildings, which comprise three ward blocks, of which two are ready for occupation, an administration block, nurses' home, three solarium's (one attached to each ward block), a visitors' rest room, kitchen stores, garages, and a lodge. Each ward contains forty beds, and has attached at one end rooms which can be used for paying patients. The administration block is linked up with all three wards by a covered way, and contains at one end the operating theatre, x-ray department, and treatment rooms, at the other the kitchens, and between the two the offices of the secretary and the clerical staff. Each bedroom in the nurses' home is supplied with running water. The responsibility for the building operations was assumed by the Sir Jesse Boot Property and Investment Trust, which generously undertook to carry out this task without making any profit. The architects were Messrs. Bromley Cartwright and Waumsley of Nottingham. The site itself was presented by the Duke of Portland, and he and the Duchess of Portland, who has been elected president of the hospital, took a prominent part in' the opening ceremony.

The hospital owes its origin largely to the success with which, during the great war, the military orthopaedic hospitals, or special military surgical hospitals as they were then called, were able to treat many of the wounded and trained them for civilian life. Shortly after the war Sir Robert Jones evolved the national scheme of central orthopaedic hospitals with after-care clinics for the treatment
of cripples, and *the Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital, as part of this scheme, forms a central hospital for the treatment of in-patients, and has grouped round it a number of clinics for the reception or after-care of outpatients.

At the outpatient clinics, each of which is managed by its own independent committee are carried out preventive work, the treatment of patients not needing admission to hospital, and the aftercare
of discharged patients, and, the clinics all being under the same surgical supervision, team work and continuity of treatment are assured.

 

At present, clinics are established at Nottingham, Mansfield, Hucknall, Worksop, Newark, and
Loughborough, but the hospital, it is hoped, will deal not only with patients coming from these clinics, but with those from other areas also; irrespective of county boundaries, it is ready to co-operate with any practitioner who feels that it is near enough to be of service to his patients.

The Harlow Wood Orthopaedic Hospital should thus form an important centre for treating the more advanced cases of deformity, and afford a means for co-ordinating all work for cripples in the East Midlands. It may be hoped that its efforts will contribute to a solution of the serious problem of turning cripples into self-supporting citizens. On the consulting staff are Sir Robert Jones, Mr.
Naughton Dunn, and Mr. R. G. Hogarth as honorary consulting surgeons; Dr. J. Wilkie Scott as consulting physician; Mr. J. Llewellyn Davis as consulting surgeon; and Mr. S. A. S. Malkin as surgeon in charge. The resident surgical officer is Mr. John Campbell.