The Sanatorium & Colony for Ex-Servicemen
The family transferred ownership of the Barrowmore Hall Estate in 1920 to the East Lancashire Committee of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and the British Red Cross Society. It served as a Colony for the treatment, training and after-care of Ex- Servicemen suffering from Tuberculosis. The Sanatorium, as it was then called, started with 70 beds. It gradually extended until by 1940 there were 165 patients. The population in the Colony or Village Settlement was by then 103. Colonists lived in cottages built on the border of the Estate. They continued to work in the rehabilitat-ion section of the Barrowmore Industries, A Hostel for 21 unmarried men had also been built by then.
Their majesties, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, as Duke and Duchess of York visited Barrowmore Sanatorium on the 26th March, 1931, and inspected the Estate, chatting to patients and staff.
In the early hours of the 29th November 1940, a German bomber dropped a land mine on the Estates. When it blew up 20 patients and staff lost their lives. It also badly damaged the buildings and the main Sanatorium was damaged beyond repair. The then Voluntary Committee approached the Ministry of Health, "who gave every possible help aid encouragement in the building of a new Sanatorium". The first part of this was opened in 1943 with capacity to take 50 patients. In addition there were 50 Chalets for the convalescent patients.
Chester Chronicle Saturday 5th May 1944.
New Barrowmore Sanitorium - "1940s Blitz Recalled" - Chester Royal Infirmary
Help Acknowledged
The new sanatorium at the East Lancashire Tubercolsis Colony Barrowmore
Hall, near Chester to replace the buildingthat was destroyed by an air
raid on the 29th November 1940, 18 patients and 2 members of the staff
were killed - was opened by Sir Arthur Abrahams, CBE, Vice Chairman of
the Finance Committee of the Joint Red Cross and St johns War Organisation
on Wednesday. Sir William Coates, Committee Chairman thanked Chester
Royal Infirmary, who took in all the wounded, treated them most carefully
and well and did not accept any remuneration..
Regional Centre for Major
Surgery
The hospital became part of the National Health Service in 1948. It
came under the Liverpool Regional Hospital Board, and was administered
by the Barrowmore Hospital Management Committee. In the early years
of the NHS it soon became an associate hospital for Chester Royal
Infirmary. A decision was quickly taken to turn it into a Regional Centre
for Major Surgery. The hospital took patients from a wide area covering
Cheshire and Merseyside. In June 1949 further extensions, originally
planned and commenced by the Voluntary Committee, were opened by His Royal
Highness, the Duke of Gloucester, including Ward accommodation for an additional
102 patients, giving a total bed complement of 205, including both male
and female patients, Operating Theatre Suite, Kitchen and Staff Homes,
and an Assembly Hall containing for the time up to date facilities for
the showing of film and stage performances.
The Hospital was highly regarded and recognised as a Regional Centre for Major Surgery and patients were accepted for this purpose from various regional hospitals. Does that sound similar to a Diagnostic and Treatment Centre for elective surgery? Barrowmore closed down in 1983 as part of a trend to "improve efficiency" by reducing bed capacity. It work was transferred to the Countess of Chester Hospital.
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