Thirty-six years since Her Majesty The Queen opened the £30million Raigmore Hospital in Inverness
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It may be hard to credit for many, but it is now 36 years since Her Majesty The Queen opened the new £30 million Raigmore Hospital with its iconic eight-storey ward tower. It completed a plan first suggested quarter of a century earlier, writes Bill McAllister.
It was the old Northern Regional Hospital Board which drew up the blueprint in 1960 for a central general hospital for Inverness to replace the deteriorating wartime emergency premises. Two years later, this proposal was included in the Department of Health for Scotland’s national hospital plan, which confirmed Raigmore as the natural location.
The first phase began in 1966 with a low-rise complex offering outpatient services opening four years later. The project also featured radiotherapy and physio and occupational therapy facilities along with a records department and pharmacy.
An Inverness Central School of Nursing with accommodation was another innovation as well as the Post-Graduate Medical Centre, which developed medical education throughout the Highlands.
In 1977 financial consent was given for the second phase, the highlight of which was to be the ward tower featuring nine operating theatres, a new accident and emergency unit, renal unit, offices, kitchen and dining rooms and a chapel.
Work got under way in 1978 with the last buildings from the original Raigmore House estate – a coach house and a gardener’s cottage – pulled down in 1983. Part of the garden wall remains at the far side of the car park, the last legacy of the area’s pre-medical role.
The rising tower was a major talking point at the time.
In March 1985 some 50 orthopaedic patients received flowers from Girl Guides as they became the first to swap the old wartime wards for the spacious new facilities. The following month patients from children’s surgery, gynaecology and general wards followed and in May Her Majesty performed the official opening as patients from the Royal Northern Infirmary also transferred over.
From an era of paraffin stoves in wards, no choice of food and laundry changed just once a week, Raigmore had made steady progress to meet changing requirements and expectations.
A separate construction contract began to provide staff accommodation, with 32 three-apartment houses, a block of two-apartment flats and three blocks of 32 bedsit rooms. This was quite an advance on the thinking in 1965 when pen-pushers felt it too expensive to provide washhand basins in nurses’ rooms!
A new maternity unit opened in January 1988, and two years later a new isolation ward was added, just as the final buildings from the 1941 hospital were pulled down.
Building has continued as medicine progresses and today Raigmore Hospital has 452 beds and employs 2800 people, making it a major employer for the area.
The old wartime facility and even the Raigmore of the 1970s and early 1980s could never have coped with the massive challenges posed by Covid-19. Indeed, in July this year, the hospital was placed on “code black” status after reaching capacity as large numbers of staff were forced to self-isolate.
They may well be tested again this winter, but Highland people see Raigmore as their key defence against the pandemic.
Eighty years since first opening, underpinned by the skills and commitment of its staff, our hospital has continually evolved to reach the position where it is of such immense value to the communities it serves.
Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.
