OPERATION ‘Sick Kids’, it was called in the press. Thirty young children, “many of them clutching cuddly toys and looking wide-eyed in wonder”, were moved from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill, Glasgow, in the first plase of a transfer to the Western District Hospital at Oakbank. The youngest child was just two weeks old, the eldest, eight years. Three of the evacuees were babies in battery-powered incubators.
Four ambulances ran a shuttle between Yorkhill and Oakbank. Twenty-five doctors and nurses, roughly half of the Yorkhill staff, made the journey by Glasgow Corporation bus and were at Oakbank to greet their young charges.
The remaining 30 young patients were due to be transferred the following day.
The reason for the move? Structural defects in concrete and steel girders had been discovered at Yorkhill, a 286-bed hospital that had been built in 1910. Indications were, said the Glasgow Herald, that a new Yorkhill hospital would be needed, at an estimated cost of £3 million, of which a mere £500,000 might be available from government funds.
One last young patient was admitted to Yorkhill: a boy of eight who had injured his back and neck after falling from a haystack. He was admitted at 9.10am, and 20 minutes later found himself in an ambulance, bound for Oakbank.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here