MEMORIES OF ST. JAMES'S HOSPITAL (SONIA'S STORY)

Sonia has seen St. James`s hospital life from both perspectives, having worked there as a nurse 30 years ago and later as a patient herself.
 
Sonia remembers when ECT was carried out without any anaesthetic and she remembers it being quite horrifying watching patients being conscious and held down. Sometimes lobotomies were performed - they had a fully equipped theatre for this. Sonia also remembered a lady who suffered from schizophrenia having an abortion carried out and many of the nurses refusing to attend theatre to assist.
 
Sonia was also a patient herself in the 1980s and can remember there were bars at all the windows. The admittance ward was F2 and was in the building to the west of the front entrance. The male and female wards were completely separate and the female wards had a matron in charge and only female nurses; the men`s ward had a charge nurse and just male nurses. When Sonia worked there, they were just beginning to integrate the two with female nurses sometimes working on the mens` wards.
 
She remembers the allotments and that the whole place was a hive of activity. The villas were all in use, each housing about 30 people, some having progressed to living in their own bedsits. Sonia remembers that meals were wheeled over from the main building and all the patients would eat together in the dining room.
 
Sonia recalled that the patients were far more occupied in those days as they were involved in industries within the hospital grounds during the day, earning money to buy cigarettes and sweets. Some of the jobs were a bit monotonous but it gave a feeling of being occupied and useful. The hospital was self sufficient as far as fruit and vegetables were concerned having large allotments which patients tended.
 

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