Images Dated 23rd June 1978

Ely Hospital - Ely Hospital, Cardiff. Women living in Fern House

Ely Hospital - Ely Hospital, Cardiff. Women living in Fern House, where a drinks bar was opened a few months ago, have been showing off their latest presents - a range of furniture and two hair driers. *FROM the time it opened as a Poor Law institution for orphaned children in 1862, Ely Hospital was a destination for people who had no families to care for them. In some cases, this was because members of their close family had died n but in others the reason was altogether darker. In the late 1940s a 15-year-old girl was admitted to the hospital because she was pregnant and unmarried. After having her baby there, which went on to be adopted, the girl stayed on. When the hospital closed more than half a century later in 1997, the girl n now a pensioner n was one of the first patients to be resettled in the surrounding community. One former staff member who remembered the woman, who has not been named in order to protect her identity, said: iShe didnit have a learning disability when she went in, but she left the hospital diagnosed with having one.i 23rd June 1978

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