Durban - The old picture this week takes in what was then Durban’s new Addington Hospital, and appeared in The Mercury on May 1, 1967.
The hospital as it stands today was completed and officially opened on November 10, 1967.
While the first functional hospital in Durban, The Bayside Hospital, was on the Victoria Embankment at the site now occupied by the Supreme Court, there has been a hospital on the Addington site since 1879.
The hospital was named after Henry Addington, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1801 to 1804. Its first superintendent was Mr BWH Addison.
Doctors and nurses from the hospital played a key role in rescuing survivors from the wreck of a 4 500-ton merchant ship, the Ovington Court, that ran aground on the beach in front of the hospital on November 25, 1940. Not only did they rush to the beach to render first-aid, but wards were cleared and many of the survivors were admitted.
For its centenary, Addington Hospital opened a museum which showcases the leaps in medical achievement with artefacts dating back to the turn of the 19th century. Items of medical interest include an ancient scanning machine, an authentic original dental department, an old-fashioned iron lung used as a breathing device, historical apparatus and nursing equipment, antique books and collector’s medical journals. There is also an original antique operating theatre.
Little has changed in the intervening 55 years to the main hospital building as Shelley Kjonstad’s pictures today show. However, the Nursing Home, on the left of the hospital which runs perpendicular to the sea, has had a whole new wing added to it at the back, mirroring the original building.
The Independent on Saturday