to be shocked by what my mil went through 60 years ago.

[NorthernLurker]

Talking over lunch I have learnt that my mil was admitted to hospital with pneumonia aged 12 months. She then developed double pneumonia followed by measles, chicken pox and scarlet fever. She was in for a total of 6 months and was only discharged then because her parents couldn't stand anymore and removed her with the support of their GP.
In the whole of that time they never held her or spoke to her. They saw her about three times through a window. To find out how she was they had to travel in to the city and ask at a booth. For 6 weeks all they were told was that she was critical. It was a considerable advance when the hospital started posting status updates in the local paper and you could read about how ill your child was.

I knew this kind of thing happened but to hear it 'in the flesh' is just so shocking. Mil's parents clearly did an excellent job making up for this deprivation as she achieved well at school, became a nurse and an excellent parent and grandparent herself. She is one of the most empathetic people I know.

Thinking about what that litttle baby must have suffered though - just about blubbed all over the dinner table!

My Mum, who is 92, was put into the workhouse when she was 18 months old. Her brother also went in and he was 5.

My Grandad came back from the First World War having been gassed and he suffered from shell shock. My gran couldn't look after my Mum and her brother while she was giving birth to No. 3.

They only stayed about 6 weeks but she remembers it vividly. Awful place apparently. They were hit, verbally abused and virtually starved.

To be honest I still have big problems having IVs placed, though I've never told the medical staff exactly why. As soon as I am on a table or trolley and surrounded by them I have flashbacks and panic, and want to get away.

Didn't realise how much it bothered me until I had an emergency dental appt on the grounds of that hospital (which has been largely knocked down and changed to a huge dental hospital). I was wandering around quite late trying to call a taxi and recognized the door I was standing at, couldn't remember why and then suddenly recalled being hurtled through it as a child from an ambulance. Ended up crying and running to the other side of the building!

I had my tonsils when I was about 6, 32 years ago. When I went into the operating theatre I was very scared and was sobbing and calling out for my mum. The nurse slapped me across the face and told me to stop crying! Not one of the other people in the theatre said anything, but I do remember the anaesthetist being kind and asking me to count to 10!

When I was a baby, I stayed in hospital for a week - my mum has told me since that the sister of the ward was very unsympathetic and cold. She wouldn't let me have a dummy - even though I had one at home to help me sleep. Obviously in those days, parents weren't allowed to stay.

Clawdy, that's one of the saddest things I've read on mn

Similar happened to my Gran in the 30s. She was only 5 and they didn't have children's wards so she was put on an adult male ward which would never happen now. She was fine, apparently they all spoilt her and liked having a little girl to cheer up the place.

Her language was apparently appalling when she left. She was a cute blonde headeded moppet who swore like a sailor.

Psychoanalysts John Bowlby and James Robertson studied the effect of maternal separation on infants in hospital in the late forties/early fifties; this led to changes in the way children were treated in hospital and the development of attachment theory, which today underpins almost all work with children.

I think there's a clip of the film they made, A Two Year Old Goes To Hospital here, but I'm not sure if it works...

I remember my great aunt telling me how my grandfather was in a convalescent home after... TB, I think, but I'm not 100% sure now. They used to wave at him over the wall, but weren't allowed any nearer.

Quarantine does make sense for some diseases (we still have some isolation wards), particularly in the days before they had antibiotics, as would have been the case in my grandfather's childhood.

I also remember the tale of how they scrubbed the kitchen table for the oldest girl to have an op on her throat. She was frequently ill in her childhood with various throat problems, and died when she was just reaching adulthood. I have her diary from when she was 15. She went on a Sunday School outing in a charabanc. X winked at her. I always wonder who X was?

That was the issue with mil - taken to an infectious disease hospital but NOT isolated from the other patients so they all just swapped illnesses.

DW's Aunt concealed her cancer from everyone until 3 days before she died. In part, this was due to working as a cleaner in the local hospital and seeing the utterly brutal way medicine and surgery were practiced in the 50s. In particular, the early NHS was very classist and sexist. As a working class woman she expected to be treated with cruelty by the medics and indifference by the nurses.

Even in The 70's and 80's I remember children in hospital couldn't have parents stay with them,hospital stays were longer and visitors were only allowed in for about an hour a day.

I don't remember if it was a shared ward or just a shared day room but I remember as a child reading a book in the day room and having a adult man (probably in his late 20's I was about 10/11) for want of a better way of putting it 'try it on' quite forcibly it was quite frightening and I didn't know what to do I told a nurse who said nothing to me but my mother was told and I was punished when I got home it was obvious that the incident had been reported to her as being my fault.

In my oldest child's life time hospital stays have changed so much from parents being sent away when children are staying in then to being encouraged to stay longer with child patients but have no hand in any care at all to nowadays expected to take complete responsibility for all care whilst the child is in hospital stay all the time now if you don't your likely to end up being treated like a child abuser.

When I was five I was in hospital for over a week, my Mum and Dad were only allowed in during strict visiting hours. My Dad had to drag my Mum down the corridor at the end of each session as I was screaming at her not to leave me.

DS had operations as a baby for his cleft in the early 90s - the hospital weren't chuffed about us staying, but we didn't give them a choice. I think the night sister was upset because I moaned about her smoking in her office (which was next to DS) at night, and we could smell the smoke all night.

Another relative of my own age was in hospital for the same surgery though, and her parents weren't allowed to visit her for a month. Awful.

I too remember being pinned down as a child on the operating table, to have grommets fitted.

I was able to stay with my son aged 5 in 1982 for a hernia op. I slept on a put up bed by his side in the children's ward.

I had my tonsils out 40 years ago, I remember the black mask approaching and telling the nurse that actually I didn't want them out after all.
I came round from the anaesthetic and was really hacked off that they'd gone against my wishes and removed them.

I was severely scalded aged 3 and sent to Odstock hospital, my parents could only afford to visit a couple of times.

When born I spent the first 3 days in Nicu, my mother wasn't aloud to see me

Around 1971 at the age of 3 I developed appendicitis, my appendix burst causing peritonitis.
I was in hospital for six weeks.
The hospital was 2 hours away by bus from home.
I was allowed very limited visits.

Looking at my now 6 year old, I could not imagine the terror of being separated from me in such a way for even a night.

I think I must have suffered very badly but I cannot remember anything about it.

After a life time of shyness, anxiety, social anxiety disorder, depression etc etc I am now convinced this event had a terrible effect on my mental well being for the rest of my life.

I still have trouble regulating my emotions and low self esteem issues. I have accepted I may have to take medication for life.

I am very protective of my daughter and never imagine abandoning her for even just one night.

such sadness. some of these stories make you despair of human nature.

can I add that I was nursing in a children's ward in 1985.

parents were allowed to sleep in chairs by the children's beds, some did, but in some cases children were literally dumped by their parents for 'a fit' though there was no evidence of this and left on the ward for days, effectively abandoned until a social worker would visit the patents and force them to come pick up their child.

happened a lot from Christmas Eve through to New Year's Day and the only presents the child had were brought by us nurses as we couldn't bear it.

Clawdy that just made me cry. How very very sad.

my mum had scarlett fever when she was 4 or 5 and it was the exact same she was in for months and her family could only look at her through a window it is sad isnt it I suppose they were doing it for infection controlbut to deny a child being held is horrible

clawdy I wonder though if the doctor thought it was really the best advice to give rather than being cruel( which if course it was)

my gran was as hard as nails although a good person but as my mom pointed out imagine living through not 1 but 2 world wars. the first in her twenties and the next in her forties.

I suppose you live through this horror it hardens you.

clawdy I wonder though if the doctor thought it was really the best advice to give rather than being cruel( which if course it was)

my gran was as hard as nails although a good person but as my mom pointed out imagine living through not 1 but 2 world wars. the first in her twenties and the next in her forties.

I suppose you live through this horror it hardens you.

also people were terrified of diseases and infections spreading with memories of the flu epidemic after the first war.

I remember being in quarantine after whooping cough and the teacher making me stand at the front of the class until she had phoned my mom to see if the doctor had approved my return, that was 1975..

I was alone in hospital and one at least two occasions in there with my little brother, but by that time the nurses had been trained in looking after children and there were plenty of toys; I remember having quite a good time.

To be fair, I don't see what else they could have done: my parents lived in a different town and had a younger child and no childcare.

Things were very different back then. My own DM has a very similar story form 70 years ago.

The only consolation is that nurses had much more time to interact with the patients than they do now.

My older sister has a horrendous story about having her stomach pumped. Some pills were missing, and my DM didn't know who had eaten them, but out of three children, suspected it was one child (because she was the naughtiest, and on that basis, they pumped her stomach, but sent the other two children home.

My dad had his adenoids out in the 1920's. he had to sit in a chair and they did it with no pain control. It was pre NHS of course and attitudes were different. Roald Dahl described something very similar in one of his books, can't remember which one. Horrible.