Ruchill Hospital

Ruchill Hospital
The remaining derelict buildings of Ruchill Hospital in 2005
Geography
Location	Glasgow, Scotland
Organisation
Care system	NHS Greater Glasgow
Funding	Government, Public
Hospital type	Infectious disease
Services
Beds	1000 (1948)
History
Founded	1900
Closed	1998
Links
Lists	Hospitals in Scotland

Ruchill Hospital was a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland that specialised in the treatment of infectious disease. In 1891, land was purchased by the Glasgow Corporation partly for a second fever hospital in the city. Work started on the hospital in 1895 and it opened on June 13, 1900 by Princess Christian. It had 440 beds when it opened and was designed specifically to deal with infectious diseases. By the time that it was absorbed into the NHS in 1948, there were 1000 beds. In the 1980s, the hospital treated many sexually transmitted diseases and was designated as the primary hospital in Glasgow to deal with cases of HIV. The hospital was closed in 1998 and was sold by the NHS to Scottish Enterprise in July 1999.

In 1891 when the boundaries of Glasgow were extended to include Ruchill and Maryhill, the Glasgow Corporation purchased 53 acres (21 ha) of land there for a public park, golf course and 36 acres (15 ha) for the city's second fever hospital, to relieve the increasingly cramped conditions at Belvidere Hospital in Parkhead.

Ruchill Hospital was designed by the City Engineer, Alexander B. McDonald in a Neo Jacobean style, largely using red brick dressed with red sandstone ashlar. McDonald was responsible for a number of civic projects in the city from 1890 to 1914, the most notable being the People's Palace. Ruchill Hospital's design set the standard for local authority infectious diseases hospitals built after the 1897 Public Health Act, which had made the provision of such hospitals compulsory.

Work started on Ruchill Hospital on 16 April 1895, and the foundation stone was laid on 29 August 1895 by Lady Bell, the wife of Sir James Bell Bt, Lord Provost of Glasgow, and it was opened on 13 June 1900 by Princess Christian. Ruchill Hospital cost £330,000 and was designed to deal specifically with infectious diseases, such as smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, poliomyelitis and measles, which were widespread at the time.