ONLY ONE PATIENT TREATED SINCE OPENING 50 YEARS AGO.

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 676, 31 October 1933, Page 3

ONLY ONE PATIENT TREATED SINCE OPENING 50 YEARS AGO.

Reeently was celebrated at Sutton Bridge, Lancashire, England, the fiftieth anniversary of the strangest hospital in Britain. During the whole half-century of its existence it has had only one patient— >and he died. The Post Hospital was officially opened Iby W. M. Rust, Mayor of W'isbech, on August 22, 1883. Miss Burton, the nurse, is still in attendance, and a doctor visits the hospital periodically. The wards are spotlessly clean, and the beds, lockers, and ta'bles are in readiness for emergencies. In the -kitchen there are cupboards full of crockery which has never been used, and the dispensary would be a credit to any London hospital. It is a typical hospital excepting that there are no patients. "The hospital was originally opened for th'e bentfit of seamen," Miss Burton told me, "and the only patient wh0 has received attention here was an Italian sailor, who died. "1 do not think the Wisbech Corporation has any intention of closing the place down."