Hairmyres Hospital

A modern district general hospital located 2 miles (3 km) west of the centre of East Kilbride in South Lanarkshire, Hairmyres Hospital was opened in 2001 by First Minister Henry McLeish (b.1948), funded as a Private Finance Initiative venture at a cost of £67.5 million. The hospital provides a full range of inpatient, outpatient, diagnostic and clinical support services, together with 451 in-patient beds and an accident and emergency department. Specialisms include cardiothoracic surgery, dermatology, geriatrics, oncology, orthopaedics and psychiatry.

This is the latest of a series of hospitals on this site. The first was the Lanarkshire Inebriate Reformatory which opened in 1904 to confine and rehabilitate those convicted of alcohol-related offences. This closed in 1911, but a Tuberculosis Sanatorium was constructed 1914-19, with an associated farm colony which provided work for recovering patients. During the 1930s, a general hospital was established here. The site was further expanded as an Emergency Medical Service Hospital opened in the months leading up to World War II to cope with expected casualties.

In the years immediately after the war, Hairmyres continued to treat patients with TB, the most famous of whom was author George Orwell (1903-50), who spent time here in 1947.

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