Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff
Cardiff's population boomed, going from less than 20,000 in 1851 to over 40,000 within two decades. By 1890, Glamorgan Asylum housed 476 Cardiff residents. Another 500 to 600 were in hospitals as far as Chester and Carmarthen. Construction of the Cardiff City Asylum took ten years and cost £350,000. It opened on 15 April 1908. The main building covered 5 acres. It held 750 patients in ten wards, split evenly between men and women. Like many Victorian places, it was self-contained. A 150 feet water tower sat atop a power house. This housed two steam-engine generators, which were standby units until the 1980s. The site also had a farm. This gave food and work for patients.
Edwin Goodall was the first medical boss. His modern ideas made the hospital well-known for mental health care. Patients were urged to work and go on trips outside. Florence Emily Raynes (1880-1940) was the first matron. During World War One, the military took over the hospital. It became the Welsh Metropolitan War Hospital from 1915 to 1920. Lieutenant Colonel Goodall was in charge. H.Winnett Orr, an American surgeon, wrote about his time training in Cardiff in 1917. He then served in France. Dr Goodall received a CBE in 1919 for the hospital's work with soldiers. In 1918, Matron Raynes received the Royal Red Cross Medal, 1st class. She got it from the King at Buckingham Palace.
Cardiff City Mental Hospital embraced occupational therapy between the wars. The American Occupational Therapy Association founded this treatment in 1917. Sister Patricia Sunderland, a mental nurse, became the first occupational therapist in 1930. Sunderland's report on the hospital's occupational therapy service appeared in the Nursing Times in 1932. It was the first Welsh report and the first publication by an Irish occupational therapist. During World War II, part of the hospital served the military. It became the largest emergency hospital in South Wales. British, American, and German soldiers received treatment there. Two hundred beds remained for civilians, enabling early PTSD treatment for military patients.
The Ministry of Health took over the hospital on 5 July 1948, with the start of the National Health Service. The Whitchurch and Ely Hospital Management Committee managed it. This committee also oversaw Ely Hospital, another large psychiatric hospital in Cardiff. After the "Care in the Community" introduction in the early 1980s, the hospital declined. The number of resident patients decreased. The hospital appeared in the 2007 Torchwood episode "From Out of the Rain." It first aired on 12 March 2008. In November 2010, the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board decided to centralise adult mental health services at Llandough. The hospital shut down in April 2016.
