Manchester Royal Eye Hospital: Out-Patients’ Department and Nurses’ and Domestics’ Home

The Manchester Royal Eye Hospital is now completing a scheme of extensions which will increase its invaluable services to a large and widespread community. The new Out‑patients' Department and the Nurses', and Domestics' Home will, it is hoped, be in use next month. Costing about £70,000, the extensions are necessary because of the ever‑growing demands for skilled treatment not only for Manchester people but also for people all over the North of England, the Midlands, and Wales, Few towns have the experts and special equipment for dealing with diseases of the eye. One of the busiest in England, the Out‑patients' Department sometimes deals with 700 patients in a morning. It will be realised how vital it is that this building should be on the most modern lines, well lit and well ventilated and designed to accommodate large numbers as quickly and conveniently as possible.  The entrance is in the centre of the Nelson Street facade and opens on to a large waiting hall, with record and receiving offices on either side and a refreshment buffet at the end. Facing are three examination‑rooms from which the patients pass to ten eye‑testing cubicles, and on to consulting‑rooms, darkrooms, dispensary, and spectacle‑room to the exit in the side street. The slit lamp-rooms, eye‑washing rooms. theatre, accident, and purulent ophthalmia rooms are grouped in the eastern wing. Walls are tiled in a warm, sunny tile from floor to ceilin.  A feature of the waiting hall is the effective top lighting by means of circular lenses let in concrete diminishing glare. The whole has been designed with a view to easy cleaning and the ventilating and heating system is thoroughly up to date.   Entrance to the Nurses' and Domestics' Home is at the eastern end of the Nelson Street front. Common rooms supplement others in the main hospital. There are bedrooms for nine sisters, fifty‑one nurses and thirty‑four maids, with an ample proportion of bathrooms. Each nurse's bedroom has a lavatory basin with hot and cold water and a fixture cupboard fitting. The form of plan, recessed round the waiting‑hall, gives a fine roof‑garden and enables a maximum of bedrooms to face south, east, and west and to be set back from the street for quiet. Architecturally the design depends for its effect on simple proportions, good brickwork, and the bold recessing of the front. Strongly defined eaves and Italian tile roofs give it its particular character.  Messrs, Thomas Worthington and Sons Manchester, are the architects.

At present the  Manchester Royal Eye Hospital has 166 beds. The extensions, besides giving the nurses and domestic staffs proper living accommodation, will ease the work in the hospital and make possible more accommodation for patients.  The Hospital, by the way, was one of the first to have beds for paying patients. Its progress has been carefully supervised by the chairman, Alderman H. J. Goldschmidt, who is in his forty‑ninth year as a member of the board. Since it was opened in its original building in King Street a hundred and twenty‑two years ago, the hospital has treated nearly two million patients. It can be definitely stated, said the general superintendent  and secretary, Mr. H. R. North, in reviewing the work of the hospital, that the vast majority of these have been cured or relieved and thus been enabled to continue or resume work for which they would otherwise have been unfitted.  The chief contractors, who carried out the work expeditiously, were L. Brown and Sons Ltd., Wilmslow. Their name is familiar as the builders of churches, schools and houses. They are specialists in English oak work.  Constructional steelwork was supplied and erected by Robinson and Kershaw, Temple Ironworks, Manchester. They have undertaken large contracts for steelwork all over the country. The heating and hot water supply plant is the work of Messrs. Saunders and Taylor Limited, Trafford Park, Manchester. They have done much hospital work, having; contracts completed or in hand for many of the largest Manchester hospitals. They recently completed the plant for the new Victoria Hospital, Blackpool, and a large extension for the Sheffield Royal Hospital. Robert Heyworth and Co., sanitary and heating engineers, Manchester, were contractors for the plumbing, glazing, and cast‑iron drainage work, and A. and S. Wallace Ltd., Newton Heath, Manchester, for the plastering. Laboratory equipment was supplied by Griffin and Tatlock Ltd., scientific instrument makers and laboratory furnishers, Manchester, an old‑established and progressive firm. Their appliances are much used in medical science, industrial science, and for educational purposes; Comprehensive catalogues illustrate the variety and extensiveness of their work. Bedding, bedsteads, and upholstery were supplied by Rhinds, of Stretford Road and Deansgate, Manchester. The window drapings of the hospital were fitted out by Pauldens Ltd., Manchester. Fine, plain, filet net is used throughout, and in the lounge is a pair of reversible velour draw‑curtains in a beautiful shade of green. This work was carried out on the premises of the Manchester store. Pauldens have been and are supplying curtains and carpets, etc. for many of  the new super cinemas.

Thomas Armstrong and Brother Ltd., have carried on business as opticians in Deansgate since the year 1825, and have held the appointment as opticians to the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital for 57 years.  During this period it is estimated that approximately 600,000 pairs of spectacles and 50,000 artificial eyes have been supplied, by them to hospital patients.

Reference     Manchester Guardian 26 June 1937 Page 20 with illustration. - Written as an advertising feature, although not stated as such. Only those who had taken advertisements were mentioned in the text