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Cameron Hospital

Cameron Hospital is usually remembered as a women’s hospital, but in fact it was built and equipped in 1905 as a general hospital, at a cost of £20,400.

It was a gift to the town by the Cameron Family and when it opened it provided 40 beds in one female and one male ward, and an operating theatre. A 20 bedded children’s ward was opened in 1931 as well as a veranda for the south ward. It became a training hospital in 1933.

In 1955 the focus of the hospital was altered and it became the Cameron Maternity and Gynaecology Hospital.

The hospital over the years became renowned for pioneering advances in medical and surgical techniques. The region’s first GIFT baby was a success story for consultant Hugh Dawson and his team in 1989 and the Cameron team also successfully carried out IVF on the N.H.S. in 1990 - only the second hospital in the country to be successful with an N.H.S. patient.

Cameron Hospital closed to the public in 1991 when the team was transferred to the General Hospital, Hartlepool.   

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