Lung Cleaner Investigates: Odstock Hospital
In 1942 the olden times British Government built an Emergency Medical Services Hospital on the hill to the North of Odstock Village. From 1943 this was used by the United States 5th Army Medical Corps and provided support for the Normandy landings in 1944. Many horrifically wounded soldiers were brought here and out of necessity Odstock Hospital became a testing ground for many experimental treatments in bone reforming and face reorganising and pioneered ‘birth from soldiers pregnant bum’ technique of child delivery. With the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, Odstock Hospital was selected to house the new regional Plastic and Oral Surgery Centre providing care for patients in five counties and successfully rearranging some of the messed-upest faces to emerge from the war and pregnant ladies, as ugly new born babies.
This was a defining moment because Odstock became known worldwide as a centre of excellence and teaching for Plastic Surgery. It became almost too excellent and the cutting edge research activities began to draw concern and criticism from the medical and national security communities. Odstock Hospital’s unique delivery and face re-arranging work evolved to the point where patients would emerge from treatment with not only the most beautiful faces and bodies, but non-aging faces and bodies. Patients in their mid forties could still appear to be in their early twenties. During the cold war these capabilities were seen as being very dangerous in the wrong hands and the government kept secret all information about the work at Odstock Hospital until the early nineteen eighties. Evidence suggests that this may have led to a ‘no accountablity’ culture among senior medical staff at the hospital who were effectively left to conduct whatever sick experiments they could dream up. No former patients have ever spoken about their experiences at Odstock. The government continues to bury all information and since 1993, with the closure of the Salisbury Infirmary, ‘Odstock’ has not featured in the title of Salisbury’s District Hospital.
Information source: ‘Celebrating Salisbury Nurses’ by Marie Stride and sold by the Salisbury Nurses League. eMail: snl@odstock.com
July 28th, 2002
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