This year Salisbury District Hospital is celebrating several anniversaries.
The first is the 30th anniversary since the hospital on the Odstock site became fully operational in late January 1993, following the closure of the Salisbury General Infirmary on Fisherton Street on 25th January of that year. The final move happened on 30th January.
The move meant that all patients, staff, equipment and services were transferred to the new building from the Infirmary, plus Newbridge Hospital and the School of Nursing, which was in Crane Street in the city.
The transfer included several Odstock-based wards and departments into the new building, including the operating theatres and main kitchens.
The move to the new Salisbury District Hospital (SDH) site in Odstock took 15 days from 15th January. The Pathology and Wessex Genetics Laboratory services had already been transferred to the new building in April 1992.
Gwyn Blenkinsop was the District Planning Nurse, and in 1987 became a member of the SDH design team and then the Project lead for the move.
As part of the project, members of the hospital commissioning team, along with a scale model of the new hospital, presented at over 350 road shows in Salisbury and the surrounding villages.
The major concern of most, in general, was not the hospital itself, but what car parking and public transport facilities would be available.
Gwyn says, “I remember vividly the Open Days for visits to the new building in December between Christmas and the New Year in 1992, in which over two days, 1,700 people came through the doors. We had advertised this event in the local papers, on local radio and on public transport and offered free transport to and from Salisbury for the occasion under the headline, Would you like to spend some time in hospital this Christmas?
“Another memory was, following the transfer of the Accident & Emergency service from the Infirmary to the new hospital, we had our first opportunity to test the major fire alarm protocol when at 7:35 am, I was alerted that the department’s fire alarm had been activated. Upon my arrival, followed quickly by members of the fire service, we found that a member of staff making their breakfast had positioned the toaster immediately below a smoke detector.”
The old Infirmary, Newbridge Hospital and the School of Nursing buildings were sold for property development, and vacated buildings on the Odstock site were demolished.
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