Nurses’ Home Booth Hall Hospital, Charlestown Road, Blackley

On Wednesday, 9 September, the Lord Mayor of Manchester (Alderman F J West), will open the new nurses' home at the Booth Hall Infirmary of the Manchester Poor Law authority. Booth Hall was built in 1908 as a general hospital for Poor Law patients, both adults and. children; Since 1916 it has been used for children only. During the year, which ended last March, 3,823. children were treated there. The infirmary is a recognised school for the training of children's probationer nurses. Out of 34 nurses, drawn from' Poor Law and general hospitals throughout the country, who last year passed the preliminary State examination, no fewer than 15 were Booth Hall nurses. Besides the medical superintendent and two resident assistant medical officers, the hospital has the services of a number of visiting specialists, and has special departments to deal with artificial sunlight treatment, radiant heat massage and electricity, with the open-air treatment of tuberculosis X-ray treatment, with the treatment of teeth, eyes, ear, nose, and throat. Four instructresses of sick children are employed in the hospital school.

In. 1919 the Guardians reduced the nurses' working hours from 64 to 51 per week. This necessitated the employment of more nurses and the general growth of the work has also led to increases in the staff. In 1919 there were 86 nurses; there are now 140, and therefore the new home has become necessary. It will be even more necessary on the completion of two new patients' pavilions which are now being built. The home has cost £48,000. It has 120 bedrooms, three isolation bedrooms for sick nurses, recreation and sitting rooms, lecture hall and study-rooms, quiet, waiting, and drying rooms. There is an electric lift to all floors. The building is fire-proof. The floors generally are of pitch-pine blocks. and the corridors are tiled with cork, which reduces. noise greatly. The new pavilions will accommodate 200 sick children, each in a separate open-air cubicle, which can be enclosed, with suitable ventilation, if necessary. This is believed to be the first occasion on which this type of accommodation has been provided in a general children's hospital. It is confidently thought tbat the separate nursing of each child will greatly reduce the risk of contracting other diseases to which children are frequently exposed by being admitted to large wards, and also the risk of introducing infection into such wards. The pavilions will relieve the congestion existing in the Booth Hall Infirmary at the present time, and will also enable the Guardians to transfer a number of sick children at present maintained at their hospitals at Withington and Crumpsall. [Manchester Guardian 28 August 1925 page 7]

Reference    Builder 18 February 1921 page 237 - contracts
Reference    Manchester Guardian 12 February 1921 page 13
Reference    Manchester Guardian 8 December 1923 page 15
Reference    Builder 4 January 1924 Page 26  - contracts, red terra-cotta and hollow floor tiles
Reference    Manchester Guardian 28 August 1925 page 7 with illustrations
Reference    Manchester Guardian 10 September 1925 page 11 – opening ceremony