Britain's First Paediatric Hospital
The Founding Of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital
West’s vision for Britain’s first children’s hospital was to provide healthcare for the children of the poor, contribute to clinical research and provide specialist training for nurses.
He had long argued that the founding of a hospital specialising in the diseases of children was vital. Having trained in France and Germany where paediatric hospitals already existed, he wrote to colleagues both on the continent and in England asking for their help and advice in setting up a similar institution in London. The need for such a hospital appeared great.
The Treatment of Sick Children Prior to 1852
The population of London had grown considerably due to the industrial revolution with the result that the few long established hospitals in the capital were finding it hard to cope with the increased demand. Children were accorded low priority. In 1843, a committee looking into the need for specialist paediatric institutions found only 136 children under 10 years admitted as in-patients in London’s general hospitals. Yet, of the 50,000 people who died each year in the capital almost half were children.
Opposition to Paediatric Hospitals
There was though, among the medical profession, considerable opposition to segregated treatment. This opposition was far from perverse. The major concern was the very real fear of infection. It was felt that the sick child would fail to thrive if deprived of his or her mother while allowing mothers to remain with their children in the hospital would enable infections to spread rapidly from person to person. Opponents to the children’s hospital raised the spectre of the foundling hospitals, already established in many cities in Europe including London. The rate of mortality amongst these abandoned or orphaned children was extremely high. The London foundling hospital, one of the best, saw only 4,400 out of the first 15,000 children admitted live to adulthood.
Charles West's Vision
West was convinced that the potential benefits to the child of a specialist training hospital outweighed the possible risks. When Great Ormond Street hospital opened in February 1852 children with a variety of complaints ranging from minor ailments to serious illness were treated together in shared wards. During the hospital’s first years parents were allowed to help because of the shortage of qualified nurses. However such was the fear of infection, members of the family were soon restricted to Sunday afternoon visits only.
Support From Charles Dickens
As the hospital’s reputation spread it needed larger premises. In 1858 Charles Dickens read “A Christmas Carol” in aid of Great Ormond Street hospital and appealed for funds at the Anniversary dinner. In 1860 the hospital’s physicians treated 384 in-patients and 6,833 out-patients. By 1880 that figure had risen to 1,047 and 14, 522 respectively.
Importance of 19th Century Paediatric Hospitals
Long before paediatrics was established as an important discipline within medicine Great Ormond Street hospital had become the centre for clinical research and medical education. Lectures on the diseases of children were given at the hospital by the medical staff from the late 1850s. These courses of lectures became a permanent feature. For the first time the large numbers of sick children examined in Great Ormond Street and later, in other newly established paediatric hospitals, allowed the statistical analysis of diseases of childhood and the comparison of various treatments. During the second half of the 19th century, as a direct consequence of the establishment of specialist children’s hospitals a large number of paediatric textbooks began to appear in the English language.
Further Information
Visit the joint website of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust and UCL Institute of Child Health .
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