THE DEMOLITION OF Bourne Hospital ten years ago is widely regarded as one of the great social injustices in the history of the town which after ninety years left the community without its own front line service for medical care. After a long battle by campaigners, this well-used amenity became the victim of cuts in the National Health Service and was eventually pulled down in the summer of 2003. 

The hospital started life in 1915 when it was built by Bourne Rural District Council at a cost of £5,000 [£422,000 at today’s values] as an isolation unit for patients with infectious diseases that were prevalent at the time, hence its location in South Road, a mile outside town.  

The complex included a lodge keeper's house at the entrance gate, a house for the matron and nurses in the centre of the grounds, a storeroom and administrative department and the fever section behind, consisting of two large wards, male and female, each with six beds including two for children.  

To the north was another group of buildings containing four observation wards intended for use by patients whose symptoms had not developed sufficiently for doctors to ascertain their condition, or for the reception of private patients.  

At the extreme east of the site were the mortuary, an ambulance shed, laundry, disinfector and a gas plant while water was supplied from a borehole that had been sunk to an artesian well on the site and all of the buildings were lit by gas. The gardens surrounding the hospital had been landscaped with grass, flowers, trees and shrubs. It was also proposed to add sanatorium treatment at the hospital in the future and temporary wooden huts were provided as an interim measure. 

Although intended for patients suffering from infectious diseases such as scarlet fever, diphtheria and typhoid, from January 1918 cases of tuberculosis were also admitted and it soon became evident that separate accommodation would be more desirous for these patients who were being received from all parts of South Lincolnshire.  

The council therefore began a campaign of intensive lobbying for additional funds to build a tuberculosis pavilion within the grounds but it took several years before their objective was achieved and the building was eventually completed in 1925 as a cost of £4,500 [£225,000 at today's values]. 

It was then regarded as one of the finest buildings of its kind in the country, a single storey erection with a south western frontage approximately 50 yards from the main Bourne to Market Deeping road, now the A15. The upper portion of the brickwork was rough cast and the roofing of local red tiles, corresponding with the other buildings in the isolation hospital complex. The pavilion contained four single bed wards and four double bed wards with a recreation room for each sex at either end and quarters for the nurses in the centre. There was also a spacious verandah and the entire building was heated with hot water radiators. 

The pavilion came into use immediately, eleven of the 12 beds being occupied within a month of the opening and during the first seven years of its existence, 224 patients were treated, of whom only 54 died. In the ensuing years, the isolation hospital was converted entirely for the treatment of chest conditions.  

Smallpox cases however, were excluded and in November 1930 an arrangement was entered into with the Peterborough Corporation to send such patients to their isolation hospital at Fengate. It was through this early co-operation that the present system of health administration for Bourne sprang and although geographically in Lincolnshire, the hospital was taken over in 1949 by the Peterborough Area Health Authority which also controlled the Stamford and Rutland Hospital. While the Bourne Hospital was open, this system operated to the disadvantage of local residents who were often sent for advanced treatment to Peterborough while patients from Peterborough were sent to Bourne.  

For much of this time, the hospital was still in debt. The £5,000 to build it had been raised on mortgage over a period of 40 years at an interest rate of 3½% and there were other long term bank loans to pay for extensions, £3,370 to help build the tuberculosis pavilion together with £200 from the Grimsthorpe Estates to buy furniture, and a further £3,500 ten years later, debts that were not finally settled until 1949. But throughout, the cost fell on the people of Bourne who were being levied through their rates to supplement the funding for almost half a century.  

The hospital continued to provide a valuable and much needed amenity for the town and surrounding area and by 1965, it was being run as a medical and surgical unit with 53 beds, two consultants and a medical officer, a matron, nine day and night nursing staff, four kitchen workers and a porter.  

There was also a chest X-ray unit which was used by the town and district and a domiciliary nursing service consisting of two sisters trained in midwifery, ante and post natal work, a health visitor and a medical officer of health, attending to around 60 cases a year and making 200 visits each month. The service was also responsible for clinics specialising in the eyes, orthopaedics, remedial and relaxation therapy and child welfare. 

The decision to close the hospital sparked a vigorous campaign in the town to keep it open, led by the Bourne Hospital Action Group which organised protests and demonstrations and a petition containing 8,000 names but the battle was eventually lost and the hospital closed in September 1998. 

The premises were left standing empty for the next five years, the vacant buildings slowly deteriorating and the grounds becoming overgrown and neglected awaiting a buyer and then early in 2003, the four-acre site was sold to a private developer, Stamford Homes. In June that year, the bulldozers moved in to demolish the complex which disappeared within a few weeks with no promise that the town would ever again have its own hospital. 

Over 70 new houses have since been built on the site and the only reminder of its previous use is the ambulance station tucked away in one corner near the main road but that too may soon be disappearing.