Here`s a better history perspective of the NHS AND the QE2 hostpital in WGC Art... I actually learned a lot from reading the article as I really had no idea..Makes me even prouder of where I am from though..
Although these days it almost seems a moot point sadly..
Welwyn Garden City was a pioneer in health care well before the NHS began.
In January 1921 the King’s physician Lord Dawson of Penn was invited to the town to speak about organising health resources.
A year later Dr Hubert Fry and his wife Gladys Miall-Smith were persuaded by a friend to move to Welwyn Garden City after Gladys was dismissed from her post in maternity and child welfare in St Pancras for marrying! They were shortly joined by Dr C.H Furnival and in April 1922 a Health Council was formed with one committee organising first aid and the other infant welfare.
The Hollies Nursing home was established on the corner of Youngs Rise and Elm Gardens by local nurses in 1924 and the first aid equipment moved there and the child welfare clinic moved to The Lawrence Hall, Applecroft Road.
The Health Council became the Health Association in 1925 and a community trust was formed with regular weekly subscriptions from local employers and individuals to pay for health care. Around the same time The Hollies allocated two beds for Association use.
The first Cottage Hospital was formed in 1929 with the purchase of The Hollies. It had eight beds – three of them private – an operating theatre and a full complement of consultants, doctors and nurses. It soon became clear that a hospital of up to 100 beds was required and various schemes were considered to raise the cash to build one.
Sadly, Dr Fry died in 1930 from blood poisoning picked up while carrying out a post mortem at the London Cancer Hospital. His wife stayed in Welwyn Garden City continuing to work in local health care.
In 1940 the Cottage Hospital moved to Fretherne House in Church Road, when staff and pupils at this former boys Prep School were evacuated. The new premises provided space for more beds, a larger operating theatre, an x-ray machine and outpatient facilities.
The hospital was funded by donations and fund-raising from fetes, dances and a hospital week once a year. One popular form of fund raising was a stunt involving local residents posing as highwaymen and stopping motorists on North Road to demand money for the Cottage Hospital Fund!
The introduction of the National Health Service in July 1948 safeguarded the hospital’s future, but the successful and valuable work of the army of fundraisers was recognised and remained.
Plans for a new, bigger hospital were first mooted before the Second World War but it wasn’t until March 1958 that work started on a 22-acre site at Howlands, on the southern side of Welwyn Garden City. The eight story T-shaped building – known as the QEII hospital - was finished in 1962, with the first patient admitted in August of that year. It was the first general hospital to be built since the war.
Highlight of the project was on 22 June 1963 when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II came to town to officially open the hospital named after her.
The Original Cottage Hospital was sold to a pub/restaurant company. It was refurbished and re-opened as the aptly re-named Doctor's Tonic in November 1982 and still exists today.
https://www.newqeii.info/about/histo...yn-garden-city
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