Birmingham Skin Hospital

The Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Skin and Urinary Diseases opened in a new red brick Queen Ann style building on John Bright Street in 1888, having transferred from Newhall Street. The hospital treated the range of skin complaints and included an Out-Patients Department in addition to the 21-bed In-Patient ward. The hospital basement contained medicated bathing facilities. Curiously, the hospital had separate entrances for women and children and men, with the latter entering via a back entrance in Beak Street. We may assume that this was to spare the blushes of those men with ‘urinary-related' diseases.

Indeed, Birmingham Skin Hospital was sometimes known as a ‘Lock Hospital’, which refers to its treatment of venereal disease. A registration fee was requested from all patients, which was paid by the majority, but those unable to do so were treated for free. In its first ten years, the hospital treated over 60,000 patients.

In 1935, the Skin Hospital moved to premises in George Road, Edgbaston where it remained until 1994 when it was relocated to Dudley Road Hospital (now City Hospital), as part of a rationalisation of Birmingham's specialist hospitals. The tpatients Department remained at John Bright Street until 1983.