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VIRTUAL
TOUR
Part
Five:
Maternity
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The
CRCMH is very well know for its maternity section. Locally, at least.
It has been estimated that some 60,000 babies have been born in these
wards during the working life of the hospital. Indeed, if you are
a Maidonian, it's highly unlikely that you don't know at least one
person who was born here - it's a local institution. At any given
time, about half of our exploration party would have entered the world
within these walls - and it was always good to see their reaction
upon returning for a look. So, what is it like now? Well, unlike the
"sensible" layout of the Western wards, the maternity section
is a mish-mash of irregular rooms. This might help to explain the
confusion over the precise Flincher experience spot which was
somewhere in this area between the X-Ray Department and the base of
The Grand Corridor. Today, maternity, like the other wards,
mainly consists of a furniture-less empty space with rubble thrown
everywhere. This whole area is not a place we spent very much time
in at all - and to be honest, you might even go so far as to call
it dull in comparison with the rest of the site.
However,
a few things do remain that give the place a "homely" feel
like, for instance, the mirror which still hangs on the wall here.
Well, bits of it do. But there aren't too many clues as to the original
purpose of the section. The most obvious ones perhaps are a few drawings
on the walls, clearly created with children in mind - such as one
featuring the perennial favourite Winnie The Pooh.
There
are other things that you wouldn't really want to associate with a
maternity unit. This broken sink, for example, has something with
the appearance of blood dripping down its sides. It's probably not
actually blood - but it's not all that pleasant all the same.
We
were probably the first explorers to have ever gained entry into the
maternity department from the outside. When we first came here, every
door that opens onto the outside was firmly closed. Here you can see
Ormrod-Spink and "Launchpad" doing their best to create
a shortcut between maternity and the Southern outbuildings (which
is a far more complicated journey if you're going to make the trip
inside the main building).
And
so we find ourselves once again outside in the open air. Here, "Launchpad"
examines the humourous shutter constructions on the maternity windows
(I say humourous because they look like something that Wile.
E. Coyote might conjure up).
From
here, it is but a short fresh-air stroll to one of the creepiest places
on the entire site. So creepy, in fact, that a former patient described
it as being terrifying whilst it was still operational - let alone
now. So let's take a look shall we?...