Eighty-six-year-old Miss Olive ’

Russell was one’of the last
patients to leave The Close.
Hospital wards at Bridge on
Wednesday. Saying goodbye is
the Matron, Mrs. Urwin. with
the Assistant Matron, Mrs. G. i .
Stanton, and the Superintendent,

Mr. Harry Urwin. The patients’

have been transferred to other ' .

hospitals in the area.

«:11 /~;[ -wesv . 3 ‘H18. ‘ g[ ¢' ‘~. '93 J
r\ ’ 5‘ é/C79 5! f §’~'3,§7/1:37”/ez',f3 “1o.,f,'°.I1;[f"

I
n.. Mo: (1 5/ \ D
.!In,, .9‘ 0 ‘mo 9% ‘I0;


  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 

Eighty-six-year-old Miss Olive
Russell was one ‘of the last
patients to leave The Close
Hospital wards at Bridge on
Wednesday. Saying goodbye is
the Matron, Mrs. Urwin, with
the Assistant Matron, Mrs. G.
Stanton, and the Superintendent,
Mr. Harry Urwin. The patients

have been transferred to other

hospitals in the area.

reception centre and has always

nun», nave.) v-...r-.---_.

Patients inofye out

of The Close

- THERE were some sad farewells at The Close, Bridge, on

Wednesday when, after 135 years, the hospital wards were
closed and their patients moved to other hospitals. For many it
meant leaving the only home they have known in recent years.

“I do not like going—this has:

become my home and I have
been ha.ppy'here«,” said 89-year-
old Miss Elizabeth Fagg, for-
merly of Barham, who had spent
over 13 years in Honney Ward.

The decision to close the
wards was taken when progress
overtook The Close — “We have
been hampered by the type of
buildings here,” said the Matron,
Mrs. Lucy Urwin.

“We cannot improve on the
ward buildings. They need
modernising but there is just
nothing more we can do with
them,” she added.

’Howeve~r, The Close will not
shut all its doors and it will
now house only elderly residents
in small twin-bedded rooms.

The Close‘s history can be

traced back to 1835 when it was
the Union for the 22 parishes
in the district. It had 350 resi-
dents and patients.

The buiding later became a

 
   

looked after the sick in the area.
In recent years it has cared for
the chronic sick, old people, long
stay patients as well as having
a number of residents.

Mrs. Urwin and her husband,
Harry, who is The Close’s super-
intendent, went there in 1964.
They said that although the
wards may have been old-
fashioned the standard of
nursing had always been kept
at the highest level.

They have had a nursing staff
of about 36 and many of those
would be going to the same
hospitals as the 46 ward patients.
Most of them were going to
Nunnery Fields Hospital in
Canterbury and Herne Bay
Hospital, although some of -the
patients had been taken to
hospitals outside the area to be
near their families.

Mr. Urwin said that when they
were using the hospital wards
a year as well as the residents.

He realised that leaving The

' Close would be a great wrench

for some of the patients who

’ had been there a. long time. But

he pointed out that the new
hospitals would not be com-

as the nurses were going with
them.

Mr. and Mrs. Urwin are to be
ma-tron and superintendent at
Bensted House, Faversham. The
new matron of The Close will
be Mrs. K. Davies, who is
coming from Benisted House.

: 

they had up to 150 new patients ,

 

pletely strange to the patients,

 
 

r