Inside Homerton Hospital, 1988
In 1988, artist Chris Dorley Brown spent time photographing the newly opened Homerton Hospital, built to replace the old Hackney Hospital on nearby Homerton High Street. It’s a delicate look at the inner workings of a London hospital, sensitively capturing its staff, patients and procedures. Needles and blood included.
Homerton Hospital, Hackney
1988
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Patient with drugs
Dorley Brown has been recording east London since he set up his own practice there in 1984. He’s documented Hackney, where he lived, in residencies and public commissions focusing on social housing, workplaces, hospitals and architecture.
The old Hackney Hospital
This photograph is of a closed-down block in the old Hackney Hospital. Before construction started on Homerton Hospital in 1982, the borough’s medical services were inadequate and outdated. One of the ward blocks in Hackney Hospital was described as “arguably the worst general hospital psychiatric facility in the country”.
X-ray patient
Homerton Hospital was Hackney’s first new hospital in over 70 years. It officially opened in 1987 and cost £20 million. There were 800 members of staff, 15 wards, 444 beds and 89,000 pieces of equipment to install. Including the latest in X-ray technology, which this patient is about to experience.
The Aseptic Suite
Services were gradually transferred from Hackney to Homerton over the next decade. This photograph is of the Aseptic Suite, a sterile area where staff prepare medication and equipment. Conditions must be monitored, cleaned and disinfected to avoid any contamination.
Taking blood
An outpatient at a blood clinic in Homerton Hospital having their blood taken, February 1988.
Midwife
Homerton’s Special Care Baby Unit provided 16 cots for premature babies and four for those needing intensive care. In October 1987, staff in the unit cared for Britain's second set of surviving sextuplets.
Casualty department
This young child was treated in one of the 24 examination and consultation rooms attached to the Accident and Emergency department.
Hospital cleaner
In 1995, the remaining psychiatric and geriatric services operating at Hackney Hospital were transferred to Homerton and the old site finally closed down.
