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Selly Oak Hospital

A

anniekei

master brummie
hi all

for the past three weeks i have been visiting selly oak hospital as my hubby is a patient there at the moment, i have had a wander round the grounds of the hospital which is due to close 2010 and chatted with the nurses and i am utterly dismayed to hear that these lovely buildings are going to be demolished to make way for yet another housing development
i cannot believe that we are again going to lose more of birminghams history, as selly oak was the kings norton workhouse when it first opened. western road workhouse has gone and all that remains there is the archway of tears and that is in a very sorry state, when will it all stop

utterly dismayed

regards anniekei:shifty:
 
Gosh, you've been busy clicking away anniekei :)....Thanks for the great photo's of that beautiful building. It's so sad.

Florence :(
 
I am glad you missed out the modern carbuncle additions. They are an important part of the hospital but certainly eyesores. ( They call themselves Architects!). It is a pity they cannot convert the buildings to other uses. Great Pics .Keep them safe for the future.
 
I know it a shame to lose these buildings,but some of them bring back unhappy memories,and as something has to give way for progress,i have seen photos of the new Queen Elizabeth hospital its a marvelous building something had to be demolished to make way for that.....its called progress:)

Mau-reece
 
I remember and indeed was involved in the transfer of acute services from The General Hospital to SellyOak and the Queen Elizabeth Hospitals in the mid 90s. Such was the anticipated public outrage of the beloved General being closed the then health authority decided the Children Hospital would be relocated there. The original plan was to build a new childrens hospital on the QE site though this was abandoned on the basis of cost. Such were the enormous costs of reshelling the entire General the total costs were similiar to a new hospital being built. The Five ways site was sold for an absolute fortune to developers but because the hospital frontage was a grade 2 listed building it had to be preserved.
It is all to with health service politics just as the demolition of Selly Oak is now. No one can doubt the centralisation of services is to the benefit of patients and the concept of one huge site is exciting.
Selly Oak does not have the the same attraction as the General did and many, including myself feel that though fabulous work is done there the buildings are no longer fit for purpose. Of course we lament the passing and demolition of Birminghams History but the reality is patients demand 21st century care, something increasingly difficult in 19th century accomodation. I have worked as a senior nurse at the Childrens, the QE and Selly Oak Hospitals and from a management perspective the latter hospital was the most difficult. This is just my perspective on things so no hate mail please.
 
hi johndavies
i do agree with you about the new hospital (super hospital) as it is being called, however i would find it a daunting prospect to be on one of the wards, the towers as they are called are the wards and contain 74 beds per wards, is this not a modern day workhouse i ask myself, progress they say lets just wait and see, you cannot fault the care that patients get in both the QE and selly oak, it is the staff that make a hospital super, its just a pity they could not use the old buildings for something else instead of demolition
best wishes anniekei
 
Hi annieker
You make a very important point about the staff making a hospital special. I remember the ambience of the General and Chidrens Hospital so well.
I havent read about the 74 bedded wards, such a ward would be impossible to manage as a single unit. It may well be a speciality has that number of beds but I would have thought it would be subdivided into smaller units each managed by a ward manager(sister in old fashioned language). If my assumptions are incorrect and there are going to be 74 bedded wards the QE mental health unit will have to expand to accomodate nurses suffering nervous breakdowns.
 
Building demolition and sale of the land will almost certainly be necesary to fund the present QE Building plans. I agree old workhouse buildings do hold a fascination, the Walsall Manor workhouse buildings still remain. Wouldnt it be marvellous if we could get the workhouse resited at the Black Country Museum. Though not an industrial building it was very much part of Victorian life.
 
Certainly no hate mail johndavies. Much respect to you and your fellow workers . Many of us have reason to thank you for the miracles you perform and wish to see you and the patients housed in the best of accommodation As you say NHS politics.
Not everyone , including me , do not see centralisation as the answer to everything. But that is something for the public to tackle the politicians about.
As much as I love the old QE, I know its time must come just like Selly Oak.
Best of luck in your new Workplace, the Q.E.2
 
Hi Arkrite

I am now very happily retired from mainstream health service work after 34 years of graft though I still do some consultancy work mainly to keep me "current". I now spend most of my time at our caravan in Minster Kent, a beautful hilltop farm overlooking the Thames estuary.The hardest work I do now is extricating my 16 year old Jack Russellete from rabbit holes... and saving hedgehogs as he likes to play footie with them.
 
Mossy said:
I know it a shame to lose these buildings,but some of them bring back unhappy memories,and as something has to give way for progress,i have seen photos of the new Queen Elizabeth hospital its a marvelous building something had to be demolished to make way for that.....its called progress:)

Mau-reece
Click to expand...

I didn't know that Selly Oak Hospital was closing.
Is there going to be a new QE on the site?
I would appreciate being brought up to date.
Thanks.

ladywood
 
:(hi ladywood
selly oak will be closing next year and everything will be transfered to the new hospital, sadly selly oak hospital is to be demolished to make way for a new housing development, hope this clears things up for you
best wishes anniekei
 
anniekei said:
:(hi ladywood
selly oak will be closing next year and everything will be transfered to the new hospital, sadly selly oak hospital is to be demolished to make way for a new housing development, hope this clears things up for you
best wishes anniekei
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information.
My Grandfather died at Selly Oak.
The best Aunt in the world died there too.
My daughter had a cut, split chin, stitched at Selly Oak.
I commissioned a photograph [for a nursing recruitment campaign] that was taken in an operating room in Selly Oak.
I will, I think, like most of us, miss it.

ladywood
 
hi again ladywood
my mom worked and lived there in the early fifties she was a nurse and stayed at the nurses home, my auntie norah died there and i have attended the A & E on a few occassion after the accy closed, with one or the other of my children, but that is another story, my dad died in the general and mom in what is now called the heartlands, all these hospitals closing, i remeber quite a few of them
regards anniekei
 
Take a look at this link. It's a new web page that UHB have launched including history form both hospitals. Some old pics on there! Enjoy!

https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/Histories/index.html
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hi all
anyone remember the birmingham dental hospital?? I used to dread going there had gas once when about 8 yrs old and was sick for a week.
regards
paul stacey
 
well Selly Oak is closed now, sad days for all like me who trained there. I had the misfortune to be there in 2007 after hubby was involved in a bike accident on M6, being airlifted to Selly Oak, and ventilated on ITU. I found it comforting to be somewhere I knew, the new hospital is very impersonal because of its sheer size, but the staff are great there.
Love the pics, they bring back fond memories.
Sue
 
Thanks for taking & sharing these pictures. It will be sad indeed to see these buildings go but I don't think some of our earlier relatives would be so sad to see the back of them! I would have thought there would be some attempt at finding a new use for them.
 
best old building I have visited in the last 10 yrs is lincoln victorian prison, with the original cells skaffold, transportation cages, and the original "pentonville system" chapel where no prisoner could see another and all could only see the preaching vicar, only the condemed could sit next to each other without a screen. I did go to selly oak once as a kid after a cycle accident with a car, about 1957.
paul
 
Decided to brush off the dust from my tripod and camera for this place as it has been on my radar for nearly 3 years. Me and a mate visited today. A lot of the buildings have now gone but there is plenty to see.

A bit of history
Taken from Wiki

The first buildings on the site of Selly Oak Hospital were those of the King’s Norton Union Workhouse. It was a place for the care of the poor and was one of many workhouses constructed throughout the country following the introduction of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. This act replaced the earlier system of poor relief, dating from 1601.

The hospital closed in 2012 upon completion of the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Relocation of the first services from Selly Oak began during the summer of 2010 when its A&E department moved to the new Q.E.Hospital on 16 June and over the next 7 days Critical Care and other departments moved step-by-step the 1.5 miles to the new hospital. On average one inpatient was moved every 5 minutes between 7 am and early evening [1] On the morning of 23 May 2010 a 'Service of Thanks' was held at Selly Oak Hospital to celebrate a century of caring and this was followed by a fun fair at which staff and patients were invited to "Take a Trip Down Memory Lane", sign a memory wall [2] and contribute to an on-line memories website. The reorganisation was first planned in 1998 though it was not until October 2004 that planning approval was given by Birmingham City Council, with construction beginning during 2006.

On to some pictures





































































Thanks for looking.
 
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