Haunted Hospitals

GingerTabby said:
Yikes!! You've made a wise decision, PeteS. I had read that an aortic aneurysm is a very serious condition but I wasn't aware that the surgery to repair it was so risky. Not having the scan at least means you won't worry.
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I really was in 2 minds GT. My father died of an a.a. but he was 86 and the coroner said that it could not have been repaired, nor could he have been saved on the operating table. I am therefore, according to the scientific info, more predisposed to having one, but the prospect of knowing that you have one and it could burst any minute didn't endear me. On this occasion and contrary to my usual practice I shall stick my head in the sand.
 
Better than sticking your head in the oven! :worry:
 
PeteS said:
He was lucky to survive surgery for an aortic aneurysm, let alone to avoid having to speak to a nun. Out of the blue last week I got an invitation to have a scan to determine whether I had an a.a. (presumably as part of a research programme). The very "helpful" attached leaflet indicated that, if I had one, the situation would merely be monitored but if I required surgery there was a warning that some patients don't survive on the operating table, whereas they might have survived without intervention. Don't think I'll bother then.
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Recently had said scan - invitation also came out of the blue, but it is apparently a Welsh NHS program. I was fine. But apparently they only need to scan you once at age 65 and if you are OK you are OK for life?
 
Cochise said:
Recently had said scan - invitation also came out of the blue, but it is apparently a Welsh NHS program. I was fine. But apparently they only need to scan you once at age 65 and if you are OK you are OK for life?
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This programme was for Lancashire and Cumbria, clearly a research one.
 
Anyway apologies for the thread drift. Back on track.

In the 80's I knew a ward sister who worked nights. At one point she looked after a patient who had solvable medical problems but some form of dementia. She was very lucid one moment and "gone" the next. In her lucid moments she would talk to people who walked by her bed at night in a very normal manner. My friend who had a desk close to her bed, used to keep an eye on her, and often see her having a conversation when no one was there. It wasn't a one sided one either, since she appeared to respond to something the "person" said and then carry on the discourse. If someone walked by as these conversations were taking place she would take the time to pause and speak to the passerby and then resume. My friend asked her once who she had been talking to and it was "her sister - couldn't you see her?, We were very close but she died a while ago". Staff believed that her sister was actually "there" - it transpired that the sister had died on that ward.

One wonders whether dementia sufferers have so "different" a cognitive ability to the extent that they can see what we can't.
 
PeteS said:
Anyway apologies for the thread drift. Back on track.

In the 80's I knew a ward sister who worked nights. At one point she looked after a patient who had solvable medical problems but some form of dementia. She was very lucid one moment and "gone" the next. In her lucid moments she would talk to people who walked by her bed at night in a very normal manner. My friend who had a desk close to her bed, used to keep an eye on her, and often see her having a conversation when no one was there. It wasn't a one sided one either, since she appeared to respond to something the "person" said and then carry on the discourse. If someone walked by as these conversations were taking place she would take the time to pause and speak to the passerby and then resume. My friend asked her once who she had been talking to and it was "her sister - couldn't you see her?, We were very close but she died a while ago". Staff believed that her sister was actually "there" - it transpired that the sister had died on that ward.

One wonders whether dementia sufferers have so "different" a cognitive ability to the extent that they can see what we can't.
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Yup, I have mentioned before that in my previous jobs working with the elderly we often came across people who seemed able to see, well, ghosts.
 
PeteS said:
Anyway apologies for the thread drift. Back on track.

In the 80's I knew a ward sister who worked nights. At one point she looked after a patient who had solvable medical problems but some form of dementia. She was very lucid one moment and "gone" the next. In her lucid moments she would talk to people who walked by her bed at night in a very normal manner. My friend who had a desk close to her bed, used to keep an eye on her, and often see her having a conversation when no one was there. It wasn't a one sided one either, since she appeared to respond to something the "person" said and then carry on the discourse. If someone walked by as these conversations were taking place she would take the time to pause and speak to the passerby and then resume. My friend asked her once who she had been talking to and it was "her sister - couldn't you see her?, We were very close but she died a while ago". Staff believed that her sister was actually "there" - it transpired that the sister had died on that ward.

One wonders whether dementia sufferers have so "different" a cognitive ability to the extent that they can see what we can't.
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Your last point reminded me of an interesting story a nurse at one of the homes* my grandma lived in towards the end of her life told me one night.

The facilities were (obviously) no-smoking indoors but residents very often complained of the smell of cigarette smoke in their rooms shortly before their was a death at the home. Did a little digging and the nurse claimed the phenomena only really started happened, or was at least commented on, after the death of a resident who happened to be an incredibly heavy smoker.

Could be a case of coincidence, but I love the idea of the Grim Reaper as a chain smoking pensioner in carpet slippers.

*She was kicked out of one. We’re wrong’uns in this family, everyone.
 
Our nearest hospital is a big purpose-built 1970s building; well, it's getting like a little town now, what with all the improvements and additions.

Here is some weirdness I've heard from a reliable source.

1. In a certain hospital lift, an elderly woman sometimes appears after the door has closed. Source has seen her, possibly more than once.
Source took a friend to try out the lift in the hope that the ghost would appear to both of them, but the friend ruined it by screaming her head off in fear. Lightweight.

2. A man will walk in front of people along the Top Corridor, then disappear. Source has seen this too.

3. The operating theatres were closed down when new ones were built. Staff were happy because Theatre No. 3 was heavily haunted. Taps would turn on, light flick off and on etc and small equipment would be moved around, all when staff were present.
Plumbing and electrics would be inspected with no faults found.

After every day's work large equipment would be wheeled away from the walls by staff so the cleaners could access that part of the floors.
When the cleaners came on duty everything would be back where it was in the daytime.

Caused some friction between the cleaners and theatre staff as the cleaners would grumble about having to move it all themselves!
Source witnessed all this many times.

At some point there was a plan to hold a ghost vigil overnight but everyone chickened out. Probably too tired, being overworked NHS staff.

So as I was going to that very hospital the next morning after hearing all this I decided to ride the Haunted Lift. It's one I used when I worked there although the ghost business was new to me.

I called the lift, braced myself, stepped in and looked forward to a scare.
Sadly, it was Mrs Apparition's day off.
I'll certainly try again though.
 
I know it's been mentioned before in this thread, but one of the best sources for supernatural hospital happenings is the discussion on the nursing forum at https://allnurses.com/whats-your-best-nursing-ghost-t79490/

It's now reached 221 pages of first person accounts. I guess if you want to experience life and death, hospital workers are the people to talk to.

The discussion has been a bit quiet lately, with no entries for almost a year, but one of the most recent posts is worth mentioning here, both as an intriguing story in its own right and because it contains a tradition I wasn't aware of:

I had a resident on hospice, end stage CHF and CKD, who was confused. He'd call the nurses station instead of calling his wife by accident. I'd tell him, "Mr. XYZ, you've reached the nurses station, this is DonnyDilaudid, your nurse. I'll come in and call your wife for you." It would happen like clockwork nearly every night around midnight for a few weeks. He deteriorated, as expected, and eventually, he died. For three nights after he died, the phone in his room would ring in to the station around midnight - nobody on the other end. On the third night, my third of three in a row, when the phone rang into the station from his room, I said, "Mr. XYZ, this is DonnyDilaudid. I'll come let you out." Went into the room, opened the window for a few seconds and shut it again. No more phone calls from an empty room after that!

To which someone replied:

- By any chance was your patient Irish?
- I believe that was his ancestry!
- It is an Irish Custom that all windows in the room of a dying person be opened to prevent a soul from being trapped at the moment of death.

You can almost see that if a person believed in a tradition like that during life, they might be constrained to act on it post mortem.
 
Very nearly a hospital happening. Ms P's friend had taken her mother to a party just before Christmas which mum had enjoyed immensely, dancing and having a little drink. Grandson was taking her home in his car and they were chatting away as usual, grandma being in fine form. When she had not spoken for 5 minutes gs pulled over and realised she had passed over. He was 2 minutes away from local hospital and when gran was examined she had apparently been dead for over half an hour. Could of course be gs mistaking time frame but nonetheless an experience which he will never forget. RIP gma she was apparently a lovely person and so full of life.
 
PeteS said:
Very nearly a hospital happening. Ms P's friend had taken her mother to a party just before Christmas which mum had enjoyed immensely, dancing and having a little drink. Grandson was taking her home in his car and they were chatting away as usual, grandma being in fine form. When she had not spoken for 5 minutes gs pulled over and realised she had passed over. He was 2 minutes away from local hospital and when gran was examined she had apparently been dead for over half an hour. Could of course be gs mistaking time frame but nonetheless an experience which he will never forget. RIP gma she was apparently a lovely person and so full of life.
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So, Grandson thought Gran'd been chatting away with him for possibly 20 minutes or so after she'd actually died? That's so weird.

Whatever, she'd had a great time and died peacefully, even though it must have been a shock to the family.
 
escargot said:
So, Grandson thought Gran'd been chatting away with him for possibly 20 minutes or so after she'd actually died? That's so weird.

Whatever, she'd had a great time and died peacefully, even though it must have been a shock to the family.
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I'm guessing that he was so shocked that the passage of time got confused.
 
escargot said:
Our nearest hospital is a big purpose-built 1970s building; well, it's getting like a little town now, what with all the improvements and additions.

Here is some weirdness I've heard from a reliable source.

1. In a certain hospital lift, an elderly woman sometimes appears after the door has closed. Source has seen her, possibly more than once.
Source took a friend to try out the lift in the hope that the ghost would appear to both of them, but the friend ruined it by screaming her head off in fear. Lightweight.

2. A man will walk in front of people along the Top Corridor, then disappear. Source has seen this too.

3. The operating theatres were closed down when new ones were built. Staff were happy because Theatre No. 3 was heavily haunted. Taps would turn on, light flick off and on etc and small equipment would be moved around, all when staff were present.
Plumbing and electrics would be inspected with no faults found.

After every day's work large equipment would be wheeled away from the walls by staff so the cleaners could access that part of the floors.
When the cleaners came on duty everything would be back where it was in the daytime.

Caused some friction between the cleaners and theatre staff as the cleaners would grumble about having to move it all themselves!
Source witnessed all this many times.

At some point there was a plan to hold a ghost vigil overnight but everyone chickened out. Probably too tired, being overworked NHS staff.

So as I was going to that very hospital the next morning after hearing all this I decided to ride the Haunted Lift. It's one I used when I worked there although the ghost business was new to me.

I called the lift, braced myself, stepped in and looked forward to a scare.
Sadly, it was Mrs Apparition's day off.
I'll certainly try again though.
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This evening, hospital-visiting, I had the good fortune to ride the allegedly Haunted Lift with, among others, the person who told me about it back in the winter. I did of course make full use of their time, extracting a blow-by-blow account of the previous weirdness.

The most interesting aspect was their account of a time when they took the lift with a colleague, not the Screamer; they both noticed the other passenger, whom they hadn't seen get in... :omg:
By the time they'd done a tandem double-take and turned to each other in shock, they were at their floor and the doors opened. For just the two of them. :nods:

The small group in the lift were so enthralled, we took the lift back up and down again.
No sign of the ghost even then but it was great fun.
 
OK, this is great, hot off the press. A relative has been in the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford (doing well, fortunately), in Albury Ward. She hasn't been heavily drugged, so is lucid and interacting normally. She is in the first bed on the right in a 6-bed room opposite the nurses station, with a toilet immediately opposite her, a door on the left as you enter the little room. On Saturday she texted me to say she had seen a ghost during the night (Friday pm/Saturday am). Early on Saturday morning, about 2.30am, she was sat in her chair due to cramp in her legs (arthritis causing her too much pain to lie down in the bed). She saw a tall person appear from nowhere, dash into the toilet opposite her bed and slam the door shut. After a few minutes, it opened the door and it came out and ran towards the ward entrance, where a male nurse was standing. The male nurse firmly said "NO" and the figure ran back to the toilet slamming the door shut. My relative wanted to use the toilet, and waited and waited for the figure to come out, but no-one did. After about an hour, she was now desperate to use the toilet and called a nurse, but explained she thought someone was in the toilet. The nurse helped my relative to the toilet and checked to see if anyone was in there - there was nobody of course, yet nobody had come out.

She didn't ask the male nurse if he had seen anything, afraid he would think she was mad. She also hadn't mentioned it to any of the other nurses because she didn't want to scare them. I told her that the nurses probably had more ghost stories than anyone and she would be unlikely to scare them! She said the ward had a very strange atmosphere at night and is very quiet. She described the figure as both a person and a "thing"; she said it did not seem solid somehow, and she could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. She said the sound was very strange, the sound of running and the slamming of the door were noisy, but like they were coming from somewhere else - like it was "not on our plane", the ward itself was in deep silence. She has difficulty describing both the substance of the figure and the quality of the sound. She is sure she was awake and not asleep; I have no reason to doubt her since she has fairly irregular sleeping habits and is often awake at night.
 
Re: this insubstantiality ~

Just realised that whenever I've seen what I assume were ghosts, these were often either:

a) Looking like 'sketches' - a bit like the superb black & white illustrations in Cliff McNish's excellent YA ghost stories (see picture below), or
b) With the apparitions' colouring slightly or greatly exaggerated.

As is usual, I can't decide whether these elements are intrinsic to ghosts (or perhaps only my own particular sightings), or else a by-product of the mind that may have 'produced' them.

----
 

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When my Dad died in 1985 (he was only 53) he died in Guys Hospital next to London Bridge.

My sister convinced my Mother to visit a medium several months later and apparently said medium made some big and supposedly accurate statements, but one of the statements that was off target involved someone called Martha.

Mum had no recollection of anyone called Martha but the medium insisted it was important and it would come back to her. Mum questioned dad’s brother’s and sisters who all drew a blank. Then one day the switch clicked and Mum remembered that Dad had died on Martha ward, and the comments made at the sitting seemed to make more sense.

Everytime I walk past Guys hospital, which is very rare now that Mum has died and I no longer have any direct relatives living in the area, I am always instinctively drawn to the window of the side room that he died in.

Edit. I started to question my memory as to whether Martha Ward was on the eighth floor of Guys and checked on the hospital website to find it is no longer listed. Probably renamed the “something or other acute ward“ now.
Another bit of my history eroded away…sigh!
 
SimonBurchell said:
OK, this is great, hot off the press. A relative has been in the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford (doing well, fortunately), in Albury Ward. She hasn't been heavily drugged, so is lucid and interacting normally. She is in the first bed on the right in a 6-bed room opposite the nurses station, with a toilet immediately opposite her, a door on the left as you enter the little room. On Saturday she texted me to say she had seen a ghost during the night (Friday pm/Saturday am). Early on Saturday morning, about 2.30am, she was sat in her chair due to cramp in her legs (arthritis causing her too much pain to lie down in the bed). She saw a tall person appear from nowhere, dash into the toilet opposite her bed and slam the door shut. After a few minutes, it opened the door and it came out and ran towards the ward entrance, where a male nurse was standing. The male nurse firmly said "NO" and the figure ran back to the toilet slamming the door shut. My relative wanted to use the toilet, and waited and waited for the figure to come out, but no-one did. After about an hour, she was now desperate to use the toilet and called a nurse, but explained she thought someone was in the toilet. The nurse helped my relative to the toilet and checked to see if anyone was in there - there was nobody of course, yet nobody had come out.

She didn't ask the male nurse if he had seen anything, afraid he would think she was mad. She also hadn't mentioned it to any of the other nurses because she didn't want to scare them. I told her that the nurses probably had more ghost stories than anyone and she would be unlikely to scare them! She said the ward had a very strange atmosphere at night and is very quiet. She described the figure as both a person and a "thing"; she said it did not seem solid somehow, and she could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. She said the sound was very strange, the sound of running and the slamming of the door were noisy, but like they were coming from somewhere else - like it was "not on our plane", the ward itself was in deep silence. She has difficulty describing both the substance of the figure and the quality of the sound. She is sure she was awake and not asleep; I have no reason to doubt her since she has fairly irregular sleeping habits and is often awake at night.
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Why not ask the male nurse? She wouldn't appear 'mad'.
She could just say that she didn't know whether she had dreamt it or not.
 
SimonBurchell said:
OK, this is great, hot off the press. A relative has been in the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford (doing well, fortunately), in Albury Ward. She hasn't been heavily drugged, so is lucid and interacting normally. She is in the first bed on the right in a 6-bed room opposite the nurses station, with a toilet immediately opposite her, a door on the left as you enter the little room. On Saturday she texted me to say she had seen a ghost during the night (Friday pm/Saturday am). Early on Saturday morning, about 2.30am, she was sat in her chair due to cramp in her legs (arthritis causing her too much pain to lie down in the bed). She saw a tall person appear from nowhere, dash into the toilet opposite her bed and slam the door shut. After a few minutes, it opened the door and it came out and ran towards the ward entrance, where a male nurse was standing. The male nurse firmly said "NO" and the figure ran back to the toilet slamming the door shut. My relative wanted to use the toilet, and waited and waited for the figure to come out, but no-one did. After about an hour, she was now desperate to use the toilet and called a nurse, but explained she thought someone was in the toilet. The nurse helped my relative to the toilet and checked to see if anyone was in there - there was nobody of course, yet nobody had come out.

She didn't ask the male nurse if he had seen anything, afraid he would think she was mad. She also hadn't mentioned it to any of the other nurses because she didn't want to scare them. I told her that the nurses probably had more ghost stories than anyone and she would be unlikely to scare them! She said the ward had a very strange atmosphere at night and is very quiet. She described the figure as both a person and a "thing"; she said it did not seem solid somehow, and she could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. She said the sound was very strange, the sound of running and the slamming of the door were noisy, but like they were coming from somewhere else - like it was "not on our plane", the ward itself was in deep silence. She has difficulty describing both the substance of the figure and the quality of the sound. She is sure she was awake and not asleep; I have no reason to doubt her since she has fairly irregular sleeping habits and is often awake at night.
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I suspect that there are a lot more ghost stories in hospital wards than we ever hear about. Trauma, people suffering and sometimes dying in terrible pain and observers drugged up to the hilt so faculties are "different". All happening in the very confined space of a ward. Perhaps it would be very strange if unusual happenings were not present.
 
Tempest63 said:
When my Dad died in 1985 (he was only 53) he died in Guys Hospital next to London Bridge.

My sister convinced my Mother to visit a medium several months later and apparently said medium made some big and supposedly accurate statements, but one of the statements that was off target involved someone called Martha.

Mum had no recollection of anyone called Martha but the medium insisted it was important and it would come back to her. Mum questioned dad’s brother’s and sisters who all drew a blank. Then one day the switch clicked and Mum remembered that Dad had died on Martha ward, and the comments made at the sitting seemed to make more sense.

Everytime I walk past Guys hospital, which is very rare now that Mum has died and I no longer have any direct relatives living in the area, I am always instinctively drawn to the window of the side room that he died in.

Edit. I started to question my memory as to whether Martha Ward was on the eighth floor of Guys and checked on the hospital website to find it is no longer listed. Probably renamed the “something or other acute ward“ now.
Another bit of my history eroded away…sigh!
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“…in the present Court Room, formerly the Martha Ward, in the central block.”

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol22/pp36-42

figure0740-033-b.gif


Guy's Hospital. The court room (formerly the Martha Ward), 1948

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol22/plate-33

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
“…in the present Court Room, formerly the Martha Ward, in the central block.”

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol22/pp36-42

figure0740-033-b.gif


Guy's Hospital. The court room (formerly the Martha Ward), 1948

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol22/plate-33

maximus otter
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That photo was from a different time and different building. The ward my dad was on was a bit more modern than that. I have seen a number of photos attributed to Martha ward at Guys, none of them show the ward he was on.
 
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STOP!

I had a word with my sister. Delete all references to Martha and replace with Esther.
From the ward to the medium.
I had a senior moment…Esther Ward is still there and still a cancer ward.

I need to find the name of the dementia ward and get myself booked in.
 
Listening to Ghosts: Haunted Hospitals, Spectral Patients, and the Monstrous in Modern Medicine
Overview:
Twenty-first century America is haunted. On the big screen and small, the lens of Western popular culture reveals a paranormal renaissance, an undying obsession with the unseen world of ghosts and haunted spaces.1 The population of reality based television programs such as Paranormal State (2007-2011) and Ghost Adventures (2008-present),
supernatural horror films such as the Paranormal Activity franchise (2009-2014), as well as countless websites dedicated to legend tripping and urban exploration, attest to our cultural fears of a horrifying past that hovers just out of sight yet demands to be heard. Across paranormal media, the structure most frequently investigated and presumed to be haunted
is the hospital, in some cases still functioning, such as the Tooele Hospital in Utah, but more often neglected, abandoned, and falling into decay, such as the Linda Vista Community Hospital in Los Angeles. While all hospitals are suspected of paranormal activity, those constructed for the forcible confinement of individuals suffering from mental illness or communicable diseases are held to be the most haunted spaces of all, perpetual prisons for the ghosts of forgotten patients and the wicked physicians who were once their tormenters. Abandoned institutions such as The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane and the Trans- Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, to name but two, have been featured on paranormal investigation programs, their dark hallways and vacant wards probed with digital cameras and recorders by purported experts hoping to find evidence of their disembodied and doomed inmates. The Waverly Hills Sanatorium and the Danvers Asylum have both served as the settings for supernatural horror films such as Death Tunnel (2004) and Session 9 (2001). In all of these narratives, the codes, signifiers, and embedded discourses of the abandoned hospital as a haunted institution remain disturbingly salient. The lenses of transmedia storytelling reveal

Source: Walter, Brenda S. Gardenour. Listening to Ghosts: Haunted Hospitals, Spectral Patients, and the Monstrous in Modern Medicine. Trespassing Journal: an online journal of trespassing art, science, and philosophy 4 (Fall 2014), 51-62​
 

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