| Context | High Carley Infectious Hospital
A hospital at High Carley, Pennington near Ulverston was established in 1884, under the Ulverston Board of Guardians, as a fever hospital for pauper patients. It dealt most frequently with cases of scarlet fever, typhoid fever and diphtheria. The Ulverston Joint Hospital Board was constituted in 1898, and ran the hospital until 1948.
In 1916 a second hospital run by Lancashire County Council was built on the same site for the treatment of tuberculous patients. To avoid confusion the fever hospital changed its name from High Carley Sanatorium to the High Carley Infectious Hospital. It was also known as High Carley Isolation Hospital and locally just as the Fever Hospital. The hospital continued to take in local cases of infectious diseases until 1949. From 1949 the buildings previously used for the infectious hospital became a childrens annexe to High Carley Sanatorium, housing children with tuberculosis and educating them as part of High Carley Special School.
Prior to 1949 the children were treated in the main sanatorium, but were accommodated and educated at Oubas House Sanatorium School in Ulverston, see BDS 59
High Carley Sanatorium
In 1916 Lancashire County Council established a separate sanatorium for tuberculous patients on the North side of the High Carley Isolation Hospital site.
At the time, the policy was to place tuberculous patients 40 or 50 miles away from their home in Lancashire and although 6 beds were reserved for Barrow patients, residents from the Furness area were treated at the Meathop Sanatorium in Westmorland.
Initially the bed complement at High Carley Sanatorium was 127, but by the late 1950s a noticeable decrease in the number of tuberculosis patients saw a change in the role of the sanatorium. Advances in chemotherapy treatment for tuberculosis meant fewer patients and in the year 1958-1959 the sanatorium ran a trial of general surgery, general medicine, particularly chest cases and orthopaedics. This was deemed a success and since the late 1950s the sanatorium was run as a mainly acute hospital and changed its name to High Carley Hospital.
The changes of use led to a program of works on the buildings which included enclosing the open verandas and covered ways of the old sanatorium space creating more wards and improving day care facilities.
From 1948-1974, the hospital was administered by the Barrow and Furness Hospital Management Committee of the National Health Service, and from 1974 by Cumbria Area Health Authority. It was scheduled for closure in 1984, following re-organisation and the building of the new Furness General Hospital. |