Wordsley Hospital

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Wordsley Hospital
Wordsley Hospital Clock Tower - geograph.org.uk - 1079016.jpg
Wordsley Hospital Clock Tower, 2003
West Midlands UK location map.svg
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Shown in West Midlands
Geography
Location Wordsley, West Midlands, England
Coordinates 52°29′06″N2°09′32″W / 52.4851°N 2.1590°W / 52.4851; -2.1590
Organisation
Care system NHS
History
Opened1904
Closed2005
Links
Lists Hospitals in England

Wordsley Hospital was an NHS hospital located in Wordsley, near Stourbridge, West Midlands, England.

Contents

History

The facility was built as part of the redevelopment of the Stourbridge workhouse between 1902 and 1904. [1] It was extended in 1915 during the First World War to provide an annexe to the 1st Southern Military Hospital. [1] Seven new wards were built during the Second World War. [2]

Ridge Hill Hospital, which specialised in mental health, opened on an adjacent site in 1982. [2]

At the beginning of the 1980s, Wordsley Hospital was chosen as the site of a new maternity unit to serve the whole Dudley borough and replacing the existing maternity wards at Wordsley as well as Burton Road Hospital in Dudley and Mary Stevens Maternity Home in Stourbridge. Construction work on the new 118-bed maternity unit began during 1985. [3] The maternity unit was officially opened by the Duchess of Gloucester on 24 November 1988. [4]

However, in the early 1990s plans were unveiled for Wordsley Hospital, Guest Hospital and parts of the Corbett Hospital to be closed and the services relocated to an expanded Russells Hall Hospital. Local MP Ian Pearson was at the centre of a campaign to try to keep at least some services, particularly the maternity unit, at Wordsley. There was much outrage in the local community at the decision to close Wordsley Hospital, with the closure of the Corbett Hospital and Guest Hospital attracting similar condemnation from the local community. [4]

The first phase of Wordsley Hospital's closure took place on 7 January 2005, when the maternity unit closed after just under 17 years in use and was relocated to Russells Hall. The last services at Wordsley were relocated on 22 April 2005. [5]

The sale of the site was agreed in March 2005 (when some services were still at the hospital) when Mar City Developments purchased it for £14.75 million with a view for redeveloping it for housing. [6]

Redevelopment

A new facility at Ridge Hill Hospital was officially opened on 18 October 2006 by local MP Ian Pearson. Some of the original Ridge Hill Hospital buildings are still in use, although others were demolished in 2007 and several are still standing disused. The road link to Wordsley Hospital was severed when the bulk of the Wordsley buildings were demolished in 2007. [7]

12 homes on Ashdown Drive, which had been built in the 1960s and houses doctors and nurses at the hospital until its closure, were finally put up for sale by the local health trust in December 2010, nearly six years after the hospital closed. [8]

Baby snatch incident

On 6 May 2002, a newborn baby girl was snatched from the unit by a local woman who had recently suffered a miscarriage. She was recovered seven hours later. [9] It was later revealed that CCTV cameras at the maternity unit were not working when the baby was snatched. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stourbridge</span> Town in the West Midlands, England

Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The 2011 UK census recorded the town's population as 63,298.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metropolitan Borough of Dudley</span> Metropolitan borough in England

The Metropolitan Borough of Dudley is a metropolitan borough of West Midlands, England. It was created in 1974 following the Local Government Act 1972, through a merger of the existing Dudley County Borough with the municipal boroughs of Stourbridge and Halesowen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brierley Hill</span> Human settlement in England

Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, 3 miles south of Dudley and 1 mile north of Stourbridge. Part of the Black Country and in a heavily industrialised area, it has a population of 13,935 at the 2011 census. It is best known for glass and steel manufacturing, although industry has declined considerably since the 1970s. One of the largest factories in the area was the Round Oak Steelworks, which closed down and was redeveloped in the 1980s to become the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. Brierley Hill was originally in Staffordshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingswinford</span> Human settlement in England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amblecote</span> Human settlement in England

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Wordsley is a suburban area of Stourbridge in the West Midlands, England. It is part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and falls into the Stourbridge (DY8) postcode and address area, being just north of the River Stour. Wordsley is part of the Dudley South Parliamentary constituency. It is bordered by open countryside to the west, Kingswinford to the North, Brierley Hill to the East and Stourbridge to the South.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grantham and District Hospital</span> Hospital in Lincolnshire, England

Grantham and District Hospital, is an NHS hospital in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. It is managed by United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University Hospital Wishaw</span> Hospital in Scotland

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">University Hospital Lewisham</span> Hospital in England

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corbett Hospital</span> Hospital in West Midlands, United Kingdom

Corbett Hospital is a National Health Service (NHS) hospital run by the Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust located in Amblecote, Stourbridge, West Midlands, England. The current hospital is an out-patient centre which opened on 25 May 2007 in a ceremony conducted by Tony Blair as part of his farewell tour before resigning as Prime Minister.

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The Heavitree Hospital (currently branded as the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (Heavitree)) is a hospital currently operated by the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, as a satellite site of the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital with its main site a short distance away at Wonford. The hospital started as the Exeter Workhouse, and was also known as the Exeter City Hospital.

References

  1. 1 2 "Stourbridge". Workhouses. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Wordsley & Ridge Hill Hospital Development Brief". Dudley Council. p. 106. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  3. "Maternity Provision (Kidderminster)". Hansard. 26 January 1983. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
  4. 1 2 Tonks, Phil (11 September 2001). "Look Back at Dudley" . Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  5. Press cuttings Dudley Group NHS Trust Archived 13 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Halesowen News 18 March 2005 [ dead link ]
  7. "Ridge Hill Newsroom". Bournville Architects. Archived from the original on 23 July 2012. Retrieved 7 March 2010.
  8. "Hospital's houses in Wordsley up for sale". Express & Star. 14 December 2010. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  9. Steven Morris (17 May 2002). "Baby girl twin 'snatched after miscarriage'". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  10. "'We failed' says baby snatch hospital". BBC News. 7 May 2002. Retrieved 9 October 2011.