{"id":961,"date":"2012-02-02T17:40:38","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T17:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/?p=961"},"modified":"2012-02-02T17:58:09","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T17:58:09","slug":"looking-back-at-ely-hospital-100-years-behind-those-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/?p=961","title":{"rendered":"Looking back at Ely Hospital: 100 years behind those walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/cardiffonline\/cardiff-news\/2012\/01\/27\/looking-back-at-ely-hospital-100-years-behind-those-walls-91466-30206983\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Officials inspect a men's ward at Ely Hospital<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the fifth instalment of our Ely Hospital series, Clare Hutchinson looks at some of the shocking stories of abuse against patients \u2013 and hears from former staff members about their experiences at the institution for people with learning disabilities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Its imposing walls stood for more than 100 years.<\/p>\n

Yet few knew what was happening behind those walls which enclosed Ely Hospital. The hospital, off what is now Cowbridge Road West, was a familiar sight.<\/p>\n

But in 1967 that all changed when a national newspaper printed allegations, made by a whistleblower, of endemic maltreatment of patients \u2013 including cruelty, verbal abuse, beatings, stealing of food, clothes and other items, indifference to complaints, lack of medical care and medication used to sedate patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must never forget,\u201d said one former resident who lived in the hospital for most of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a terrible place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labour AM for Cardiff West and Cardiff University professor Mark Drakeford, an expert on the Ely Inquiry, said the allegations only centred on a small minority of staff.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe staff at Ely were not bad people, but somewhere along the way they became part of a system that was.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the report, there was a lot of local hostility to the staff at the hospital and many of the staff themselves rejected what the report said, arguing that it had misconstrued what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a video interview recorded for the Ely Hospital project, one former patient \u2013 known only as John \u2013 recalled his own experience of abuse at the hands of a male staff member.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mam came to visit me at the ward and there was a nasty fella in there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said to me, \u2018You\u2019re not to go home.\u2019 I asked why and he wouldn\u2019t tell me. He had me on the floor, beating me up and was kicking me about like a football.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The doctor] said, \u2018I want you to stop kicking patients about,\u2019 and he said, \u2018I haven\u2019t touched them.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Yes you did, you hit me.\u2019 Then the doctor said to the man, \u2018You\u2019ve got the sack, go and get your week\u2019s money and leave\u2019 \u2013 and so he left. The way that man spoke to my dad and mam was terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doreen Jones, a former cleaner at the hospital who contributed to the Ely Hospital project at the Cardiff Story Museum, started there shortly after the 1969 Ely Inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat sticks in my memory are the padded cells and the Victorian feel to the hospital,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many things seemed to belong to the past \u2013 even the way the children were dressed, especially the boots they wore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hospital is gone now and children from those backgrounds are much better off today. They are dressed like other kids and go on holidays and things, which is great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that the hospital worked well when there were matrons there \u2013 they looked after us and I enjoyed the feeling of being part of a big family<\/a>. When I left I was sad to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some caring people working there and the children were great characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

One staff member, who wished to remain anonymous, said the hospital was a \u201ccommunity within a community\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of staff were good \u2013 there are bad staff and good staff. There were also good times and bad times. You must understand there were up to 42 people on a ward \u2013 that\u2019s a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin James, who worked for the Welsh Office and helped close Ely Hospital in 1997, said: \u201cSurprisingly, a lot of parents at the time didn\u2019t like what they saw as a move away from the \u2018safety\u2019 of the hospitals, and they resisted the idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were determined that none of the hospitals would be left standing so there was never the temptation to use them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.walesonline.co.uk\/cardiffonline\/cardiff-news\/2012\/01\/27\/looking-back-at-ely-hospital-100-years-behind-those-walls-91466-30206983\/   In the fifth instalment of our Ely Hospital series, Clare Hutchinson looks at some of the shocking stories of abuse against patients \u2013 and hears from former staff members about their experiences at the institution for people with learning disabilities. Its imposing walls stood for more than 100 years. Yet few knew what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,77,17],"tags":[88,4,80],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ely-hospital","category-news","category-photos","tag-ely-hospital","tag-news","tag-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitchurchhospital.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}