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Lodgemoor Hospital - polio treatment centre?

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Anyone happen to know whether Lodgemoor Hospital was used as a polio treatment and recovery centre just after the war....late 40s?

 

My dad contracted polio just after the war. I was very young then but I'm sure I remember visiting him with my mother at the gates of Lodgemoor Hospital. He came out to see us and we went for a short walk.

 

Can't imagine I'd make the gist of this up. Possible that I got the hospital confused though. But I don't think so.

 

Look forward to responses.

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Anyone happen to know whether Lodgemoor Hospital was used as a polio treatment and recovery centre just after the war....late 40s?

 

My dad contracted polio just after the war. I was very young then but I'm sure I remember visiting him with my mother at the gates of Lodgemoor Hospital. He came out to see us and we went for a short walk.

 

Can't imagine I'd make the gist of this up. Possible that I got the hospital confused though. But I don't think so.

 

Look forward to responses.

 

Can't speak with authority on this but I thought Poliomyelitis cases went to King Edward hospital just across Manchester Road near Lodge Lane? I spent six weeks in the Isolation ward with Scarlet Fever when visitors had to look at you through the glass window. I don't remember polio at Lodge Moor and I never heard it spoken of when I worked there during two summer vacations but obviously stand correction. Lodge Moor and King Edward's wouldn't be more than a mile apart.

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also spent the time in Isolation for scarlet fever & through the glass windows,but I was always told I was in Lodge Moor, that would 1937-38 I'd be 3or4 so its been a while

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Anyone happen to know whether Lodgemoor Hospital was used as a polio treatment and recovery centre just after the war....late 40s?

 

My dad contracted polio just after the war. I was very young then but I'm sure I remember visiting him with my mother at the gates of Lodgemoor Hospital. He came out to see us and we went for a short walk.

 

Can't imagine I'd make the gist of this up. Possible that I got the hospital confused though. But I don't think so.

 

Look forward to responses.

 

I was treated for polio in Lodge Moor Hospital in 1955. At that time it was an isolation hospital. I well remember being peered at through a glass cubicle, even though I was only 5 years old. Later I learned from my mother that you were given a number, and if your parents could not visit you, they could check your condition which was reported in the Sheffield Star each night.

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I was in King Edwards from 1950 onwards and there were a lot of Polio victims in then. For some unknown reason I was transfered to Lodge moor with Chicken Pox For about six weeks, and then sent back to King Edwards. To my knowledge there were no polio sufferers in Lodge Moor.

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Can't speak with authority on this but I thought Poliomyelitis cases went to King Edward hospital just across Manchester Road near Lodge Lane? I spent six weeks in the Isolation ward with Scarlet Fever when visitors had to look at you through the glass window. I don't remember polio at Lodge Moor and I never heard it spoken of when I worked there during two summer vacations but obviously stand correction. Lodge Moor and King Edward's wouldn't be more than a mile apart.

 

It's one of those memories that is hazy on the details but I know it happened. I was 3 or 4 at the time. Lodgemoor or King Edward hospital? I don't know. What's hampering me is my knowledge of the topography and place names of the area. What I do remember is my mother and I meeting my dad, who had just walked down a long drive from the hospital. His arm and shoulder were strapped up, as he was recovering from polio. My mother and I walked down the road then downhill into a wooded area. We exited the wooded area, walked along another road, caught a bus bk into town on a street corner. The name Wyming Brook rings a bell but I'm not sure whether it is associated with that visit or not. I'd like to know as I'm writing about my childhood. Not sure whether any of the above helps to resolve things.

Edited by soft ayperth
additional info

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That sounds like King Edwards. I was born in Lodge Moor Hospital during the war.

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Yes, Lodge Moor was used to treat some polio victims. I remember patients who had to be treated in iron lungs were at Lodge Moor- some of them for many years. I'm sure the last patient to be treated like this died there not that long ago.

If anyone can confirm this I'd be happy to hear of their experiences.

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It's one of those memories that is hazy on the details but I know it happened. I was 3 or 4 at the time. Lodgemoor or King Edward hospital? I don't know. What's hampering me is my knowledge of the topography and place names of the area. What I do remember is my mother and I meeting my dad, who had just walked down a long drive from the hospital. His arm and shoulder were strapped up, as he was recovering from polio. My mother and I walked down the road then downhill into a wooded area. We exited the wooded area, walked along another road, caught a bus bk into town on a street corner. The name Wyming Brook rings a bell but I'm not sure whether it is associated with that visit or not. I'd like to know as I'm writing about my childhood. Not sure whether any of the above helps to resolve things.

 

There was certainly a long drive and a long perimeter drive around Lodge Moor Hospital. The 51 bus used to stop right at the bottom of the drive - the stop back to town had a café next to it. After alighting, the 51 bus went down the hill and reversed by the POW camp, coming back up to park by the café. Wyming Brook is further down that very road but was a limited service. There was also the famous Clock Tower landmark at LMH.

The first junction (Crosspool-bound) is the golf course at Lodge Lane (which goes down to Manchester Road and then across to King Edward V11 on Rivelin Valley Road. The first right is Blackbrook Road, which at that time, had little on except for the Uni labs.

I can't be sure about the polio, DIDO seems to support that view but WALT says he had polio and was in LMH so he should know.

 

http://walterwildgoose.blogspot.com/2005/08/diphtheria-and-lodge-moor-isolation.html

 

The person writing this blog, ignore some spellings, confirms he was taken to LMH with poliomyelitis - thus, I think the answer is YES! http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=693&mode=linear

Edited by CHAIRBOY

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Chairboy, I wish I had a map to try and tie it down. It does sound from your description that it was LMH. If the little cafe is the one I'm thinking of it used to serve delicious sandwiches.

 

Supposing it was LMH. We walked down the road into a wooded area turning rt. Would that wooded area have been Wymin Brook?

 

Then after exiting the wooded area and walking down a road to catch the bus bk to Sheffield, what do you think that place/area would be?

 

I'm coming to Sheffield this summer so I might have to revisit the scene to get the answer. I know KEVII has been converted into flats. Is LMH still there?

 

thanks

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Chairboy, I wish I had a map to try and tie it down. It does sound from your description that it was LMH. If the little cafe is the one I'm thinking of it used to serve delicious sandwiches.

 

Supposing it was LMH. We walked down the road into a wooded area turning rt. Would that wooded area have been Wymin Brook?

 

Then after exiting the wooded area and walking down a road to catch the bus bk to Sheffield, what do you think that place/area would be?

 

I'm coming to Sheffield this summer so I might have to revisit the scene to get the answer. I know KEVII has been converted into flats. Is LMH still there?

 

thanks

 

If you remember the café, that seems to suggest LMH but I am lost with your movements. Wyming Brook and then Redmires are a fair distance to walk and not near any alternative bus routes. Left -You would go down into a dip and then climb past two pubs, Sportsman (left) and Three Merry Lads (right) side of road. I think you would have to have caught the bus by the café which was the terminus.

Lodge Moor Hospital site has now been built upon. The hospital closed about 1995 with the South Ward (Spinal Injuries) moving to a new complex - Princess Royal SIU at Northern General.

I thought LMH was a wonderful hospital (if such a place), ward windows opened and patients could be taken out onto the fields for fresh air or recreation. Much better than a concrete block with double glazing?

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Apparently all polio victims were taken to Lodge Moor, so the extent of their problem could be assesed. Also Lodge moor was the only hospital with Iron Lungs.

All the people were first put in isolation, and then they were transfered to the Observation unit at King Edwards, before moved onto the main wards.

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