A free public exhibition about the history of Ealing Hospital and its predecessors including Ealing Cottage Hospital is now on show in the hospital’s Galleria area on floor three.
The exhibition begins by featuring ‘cottage’ hospitals that treated local people before the creation of the NHS along with other important milestone events that have shaped healthcare in the area.
The building of the new Ealing hospital, which is now part of London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (LNWH), on Uxbridge Road was beset by issues including strikes and inflation in the 1970s. .
The Labour government at the time had promised the new hospital by 1974 but it would not open until 1979 and was £4 million over budget.
Its first patient was 82-year-old Eva Cook on February 24 1979 and her first bedside visitors were a crew from ITV news.
She said at the time: “I didn’t get much sleep that night because I was so excited to be on TV.”
Dr Michael Rudolf was one of the first consultants employed at the hospital and went on to become its medical director. The now retired consultant said: “The first few days were a bit surreal. The hospital was empty, you had no problem with parking spaces and A&E only admitted between 10 and 20 patients a day. That did not last long.”
Dr Rudolf added: “Clinical staff were far more involved in running the hospital back then. There was less bureaucracy and red tape, and no performance targets beyond doing the best for our patients. I had a wonderful career and count myself lucky that I spend most of it in Ealing.”
