| MEDICAL INDEX | |
|
|
Survey of Hospital
Archives in CARLOW Ireland Carlow District Lunatic Asylum opened in 1832
for the reception of patients from Carlow, Kildare, Wexford and
Kilkenny. By the late 1860s it catered just for Carlow and Kildare. One poor law union was established in the
county. Carlow Poor Law Union was formally declared on the 15th of
September 1840. The workhouse was designed to accommodate 800 inmates
and its first admission was in November 1844. In the first decade of the 20th century the
institutions in the county included the workhouse, with infirmary and
fever hospital at Carlow, and small hospitals at Muinebeag
(Bagenalstown) and Tullow. In addition, the poor of all classes in
Baltinglass and Idrone Rural Districts, had access to the workhouse
infirmaries and fever hospitals of the Baltinglass and New Ross Poor Law
Unions. The County Scheme The reorganisation of the local public health
infrastructure which took place throughout Ireland in the early 1920s
under the County or Amalgamation Schemes was not as traumatic in Carlow
as in other counties. Under the Carlow County Scheme Order, 1923, a
county home was established which utilised the old cavalry barracks in
the town, the Free State Army having taken over the workhouse, which
was, some years later, demolished. Under the Scheme, the following classes were to be accommodated in the county home: - aged and infirm, chronic invalids, harmless lunatics and epileptics, children, unmarried mothers, and maternity cases, and the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor found all these classes there when they visited the institution in the mid-1920s. They also noted that part of the accommodation had been set aside for cases of pulmonary tuberculosis and cancer and that there was a maternity department attached to the home. A district hospital was established in the old
county infirmary building. The accommodation amounted to 17 beds and
minor operations only were undertaken, serious cases being sent to
Dublin. The Fever Hospital, Carlow, was a separate building situated
about half a mile from the county home. The district hospital in
Muinebeag could accommodate 15 beds and had a small detached fever
hospital with two wards. The district hospital in Tullow was a building
of the bungalow type erected in 1922, accommodating 16 beds and was
connected by a covered passage to a small fever hospital. In other counties, the county schemes had led to
significant reductions in the number of institutions maintained at
county expense. In Carlow, the county authorities were financially
supporting almost the same number of public institutions as had existed
before the establishment of the state. It was a situation which would
retard the expansion of the hospital infrastructure in the county as the
century progressed. Later 20th Century Developments In the mid-1930s, a surgical, medical and
midwifery hospital run by the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary was
established in Carlow and operated until 1967. In September 1949 Tullow
District Hospital became a TB institution and operated in that capacity
for a few years until its closure. The county home became known as the
Sacred Heart Home in December 1952. By March 1957, 41% of the population
in the county was on the general medical services register which
entitled them to free hospital treatment. As a result of the decline in
infectious disease, Carlow fever hospital closed in December 1956. In 1971 the county became part of the South
Eastern Health Board. The district hospital in Muinebeag, St.
Lazerian’s, closed in 1987. In April 1986 the present Sacred Heart
Hospital was opened on the site of the old county home. Source: https://www.nationalarchives.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/PRF_106780_SURVEY_OF_HOSPITAL_BOOK_V7.pdf
|
|
|