The original Glasgow Samaritan Hospital for Women in South Cumberland Street in Hutchesontown, photographed in the year of its opening. According to the first annual report, there was a perceived need for "a special hospital on the south side of the city in which women of the poorer class could be gratuitously treated for serious diseases, more particularly for diseases peculiar to their sex, unsuitable for the wards of a general infirmary."
The hospital was opened by Sir Archibald Campbell MP on 4 January 1886 in leased premises. It contained just three beds for patients and limited accommodation for staff.
The three beds constituted the In-door Department; there was also an Out-door Department, which included a dispensary, open for free advice on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In the first year eighty-seven patients were treated in the In-door Department, all for surgery and eighty-four of whom recovered. There were 1,240 attendances by 185 patients seeking treatment in the Out-door or Dispensary Department.
Reference: Heatherbank Museum of Social Work, print 6060
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow Caledonian University, Research Collections, Heatherbank Museum of Social Work
Keywords:
diseases, dispensaries, Glasgow Samaritan Hospital for Women, horses and carriages, hospitals, public health, surgery, women patients, women's hospitals