ninety years of service - University Hospital Southampton NHS ...

its early days was Mr Reggie Fulton who was a tower of strength in raising funds and recruiting members particularly fromlocal schools.The League of Friends grew rapidly and performed an invaluable service in providing funds and also acting as animportant link between the hospital and the general public. The main fund raising events were the twice-yearly fairs whichwere held at Winchester Road in the spring and at Bursledon in the autumn. A regular attender at the former was DrHorace King, M.P. for Itchen and Speaker of the House of Commons. At the Autumn fair there was usually an exhibitionof painting by the children in the Annexe some of which reached a very high standard. Starting on a relatively modestscale with gifts of knitted garments, toys, television, out-door play equipment, etc the Friends soon undertook moreambitious projects. In collaboration with the ‘Elfin’ School of Dancing and local W.I.s, they decorated and furnished the‘Mothers Room’ at Winchester Rd and later provided large play huts at both Winchester Rd and Bursledon which werealso used for nurses recreation in the evenings.They also redecorated and furnished hospital chapel as amemorial to Peter Lynch the young son of a member of thehospital staff. On a more personal level the Friends provided atea trolley for visitors at Bursledon on Sunday afternoons aswell as canteen workers and ‘hostesses’ for out-patients also‘play ladies’ and librarians in the wards. On occasions too, inresponse to appeals from matron, members of the Leaguewould temporarily take over duties in the kitchen or on thewards when there was a staff crisis. Later the Friends turnedpart of their attention to providing major medical equipmentsuch as piped oxygen in the wards and an image intensifier X-ray. Since the move to the General Hospital in 1974 theFriends have continued to support the Children’s Unit thereand at Bursledon until it closed. Visitors to Bursledon could notfail to notice two large play items in the grounds; one was analmost life sized steam engine presented by apprentices at Hawker Siddely and the other an enormous boot-house fromthe Eastleigh Carnival.Mention must also be made of the ‘Jackdaw Fund’, This was money collected by the jackdaws in their aviary in East Park.The birds would take coins of all denominations from visitors and place them in a container. They started collecting in1948 and by 1955 had taken 38441 different coins averaging over £4 per week. This money was presented to the hospitaleach year, over many years, by Mr Moody their keeper and usually put to the purpose of purchasing some desirable itemof equipment; in 1957 he presented a £400 for an incubator.PAEDIATRICS IN WESSEXIt is not possible to follow the development of the Children’s Hospital in the N.H.S. separately from that of paediatrics inthe Region generallyThe first step towards establishing a paediatric service in Wessex was the appointment of Dr George Ormiston asPaediatrician in February 1947 with responsibilities both at he Southampton Children’s and Royal Hampshire countyHospitals. His salary was to be £500 each from Southampton and Winchester. The term “Paediatrician” was quite new tothis country at this time, having been introduced from North America in the thirties. It is a curious fact that although manychildren’s hospitals were founded in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century only a handful of doctors in thiscountry were specialising entirely in childhood illness prior to World War II.At their London H.Q. in November 1949 the Regional Board made three simultaneous appointments viz:- Dr JohnMoseley to the Portsmouth and Isle of Wight districts, Dr A.P. Norman to Bournemouth, Dorset and Salisbury, and myselfto Southampton. Winchester and Alton.Dr Moseley’s base was at St Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth where he had two large upstairs wards without washbasins, inan old fashioned block. He had a further 20 children’s beds at Portsmouth Royal Hospital. Like ourselves he wasexcluded from access to the neonates in the maternity department for several years. At Ryde in the Isle of Wight therewere 20 children’s beds in the care of Dr A Miller. Dr Moseley paid weekly visits there and also to the neonates atNewport.In Bournemouth, Dr Norman had two very gloomy children’s wards in the ex-Poor-law institution at Christchurch. He heldout-patient clinics at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Boscombe and at the Cornelia Cottage Hospital at Poole. He also hadbeds and clinics in the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester and at the Weymouth and District Hospital. In Salisbury hehad a ward at the ex-U.S. Army hutted hospital at Odstock with an O.P. clinic at the General Infirmary.As well as the Children’s Hospital in Southampton and the Bursledon Annexe, Dr Ormiston and I had a small children’s