Celebrating 25 years of caring

DR Kershaw’s Hospice celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Here MARINA BERRY looks back to the beginnings of Kershaw’s, when it was a cottage hospital, built from a legacy left by a local GP.

WEALTHY eccentric Dr John Kershaw left £50,000 — almost his entire legacy — for the establishment and maintenance of a hospital.

An enormous amount at the time of his death in 1909, it was the catalyst for creating a dream that saw a cottage hospital built on his Sunfield estate in Royton, 22 years later.
Dr Kershaw was born in Lees and moved to Royton, where he was a GP and later became Medical Officer of Health for Royton.

The cottage hospital was built and equipped for £14,850. Shortly before it opened, on February 28, 1931, the charity had £66,000 in the coffers.

There were only 12 beds - male and female wards each with five beds and two private rooms with a single bed. It was administered by a nine-strong committee whose goal was to give medical and surgical aid to patients who would not otherwise be able to obtain it.

Patients were admitted on a doctor’s recommendation, whom they had to continue to pay on top of the 10 shillings (50p) a week towards their maintenance — a figure reduced to five shillings a week in 1937.

The hospital was extended in 1938, and 10 years later was transferred to the NHS despite the protests of local people and the management committee.

Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby, was conceived there, in Patrick Steptoe’s human in-vitro fertilisation clinic. The hospital later became a centre for geriatric care.

Closed in 1986, it reopened in 1989 after being handed to the Oldham Hospice Appeal and renamed Dr Kershaw’s Hospice.

The hospice now costs £1.7 million a year to run, the vast majority of which has to be raised by dedicated fundraisers, donations and legacies. There are 10 beds for constant care, and a day hospice to support people with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses living at home.

The hospice supports carers and relatives, and volunteers offer a range of complementary therapies to patients.

The ethos behind Dr John Kershaw’s cottage hospital is still true at the hospice today, in that it is open to all, regardless of their religious beliefs.