Hospital’s can be big. The Royal Adelaide Hospital for example covers the equivalent of three city blocks.
It can often be hard to visualise the scale of hospitals when we are looking at them from street level. Adding to this is the jumble of different buildings, that many hospitals are made up of.
Fortunately the Health Museum has a number of aerial photographs, that help to give us a sense of a hospitals size and how buildings connect.
The Old Royal Adelaide Hospital
These two photographs highlight how the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site was a mix of buildings from different eras. With buildings coming and going as the hospital grew and needs changed.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital
The photograph from 1956-1957 shows The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in its first few years of being built. If you have been to the hospital recently you will know how different the hospital looks from the times that these two photographs were taken.
Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre / Morris Hospital
These aerial photos show how at Hampstead, and its neighbour Morris, the wards and various ancillary buildings were connected via long covered walkways.
Written by Jonathan Hull, CALHN Health Museum