Episode 17
Old Kew Hospital
Hey, welcome to another episode of Jay Wont dart's podcast. This episode Im going to talk a bit about the old Invercargill hospital. Its scary as hell, at least for me, I've added a couple of sound effects I recorded on my iPhone while waiting to escape the horrors that was, Old Kew Hospital! Its not quite the same as being there, but it sets the mood. Hey, isnt this the Vincent Price laugh , from Michael Jackson's song Thriller?
At the moment, I've just came back from the old Invercargill Hospital, its being demolished. This podcast episode is about how creepy that old beaten up building is, parts of it are about a hundred years old. Theres garbage all throughout the inside, puddles of water from leaks, and mould. I get scared of hospitals, because of the death and disease that goes on inside. I dont like blood either. Once I got a personal tour from a family friend who worked at the hospital, she worked in the blood section, well, she closed the door on me inside the giant refrigerator that keeps the blood cool, all around me there were probably hundreds of litres of blood, I was thinking what it would feel like if they burst on me, being in a completely dark fridge, drowning in donated blood.
Its weird as hell seeing it now, it looks the same as it did about five years ago, it just has some really bashed up broken windows, and leaks. Theres still rubbish left from when the hospital was used last, theres still medical equipment like artificial legs new in the boxs still, I could see them in a locked room. Lots of things were kinda stacked up, paintings off walls all stacked up in one corner, but it didnt look like they were getting moved out, basically everything in the hospital was going to be trashed, apart from a few things that some secondhand dealers had bought, I was getting stuff with my dad.
One of the wards I went up to, on the top story, is on a jutting out part, it sticks out into the carpark, its weird, this big multistory brick building, its quite thin, it has enough room for two hospital rooms on each side, not really rooms ,just curtain tracks to close off sections for privacy, with walking space in between.
Anyway, pretty soon it will all be gone. The modern hospital was built in front about 5 years ago, it looks a lot smaller, but its a LOT nicer inside, its very modern, lots of space, you could drive cars about through all the hallways easily. It has lots of windows, and feels clean. In the middle of the main building, theres a sort of stone garden, with stones, and maybe a water feature or something, its just this big huge area in the middle, with windows to look at it through, I dont think you're meant to go through and sit there or anything, its just to make the hospital feel more natural.
I saw some freaky rooms in the old hospital, theres the chapel which is kind of weird, I didnt go in, but its pretty sad that this chapel would have basically been for people to make peace with God, before they died. Im sure they would have done sunday ceremonies or whatever, but its not like a happy place to go to a church, in a hospital, its more like for people who feel they need to while they are very sick, or dying. Across from that was a bathing pool, its for therapy I think, it had a stretcher type board rigged up on a hoist, to put people into the water who wouldnt be able to climb in by themselves or whatever.
It looked weird, all deserted, this old pool for disabled people.
Something I did like, all the stuff to do with Nuclear medicine, the MRI scanners, and chemotherapy I would guess. I dont know if they did chemotherapy here in Invercargill, or if patients had to go to a larger city like Dunedin. I didnt go and investigate, but saw the signs everywhere. Something quite cool, my dad took a bunch of the signs, with permission, they were just going to get thrown out otherwise, so we have all these medical signs, signs pointing where to go for wards etc.
We parked out the back of the hospital to get stuff, just across from the mortuary, where dead bodies are kept chilled. I get freaked out by death, I dont think I could have gone in there, it was closed. I think it might still be used, there was a building next to it with a chimney that was going, it could have been burning medical waste, you know like amputated body parts and blood and who knows what else.
We got some dentist cabinets, where all the poking tools were kept, some still have the instruments in them. There were lots of fancy equipment, all junk now probably, but would have cost alot new, no idea what it was for.
In a main staff cafeteria part, there were Pro meat posters, funny label, pro meat :) Things saying "eat red meat!" from the beef and lamb cartel or whatever you call them, those idiots who represent all the farmers in this country. The meat in the poster looked raw, it was this gross pink red colour. I almost wanted to take the posters like that because they were so gross looking. I hate the Beef and Lamb ads that get played on tv often here, with new zealand female athletes on. I've just bought a parody t shirt from a fellow vegan, it says "meat is murder" on the athletes t shirts, and "beef and lamb, be twice as cruel" at the bottom.
The people who were there representing the hospital, or taking it apart, were pretty cold, they didnt talk to me at all, they would say things to my dad every now and then, we were mostly alone in the scary old buildings, and then people would just jump out of dusty corridors and surprise me. We moved a hundred desks and cabinets down from the third story by ourselves, the other people were just walking around most of the time, I saw some working taking roofing tiles off, they had this lift thing, it was pretty small, just a metal plate really that went up and down diagonally to the ground, with a guy on the roof putting one slate tile at a time onto the lift, and one taking it off and putting it a box it seemed.
One of the people taking a perpetual break said something like 'urrghaltaght harg harg harg!" at me, I said "wha?" to him and he just turned away, dammned if I know what their problem was. I saw them eating meat pies, wanted to say something like "oh, didnt know the mortuary had a crematorium next to it" or something, im used to people making fun of me for not eating meat, before a recent funeral my dad brought up that I didnt eat animal products , to my aunty, whos partners a farmer, they were disgusted really, they laughed at me quite a lot, "whut you naed is a bug steak ergh" and then my dad and the two of them were all hahahahhaha, they thought they were sooooo clever.
Im getting used to bringing it up my veganism when its relevent, I never bring it up around friends as it would be pretty annoying for them I would think, telling them what to do all the time. But, almost every time im in a group of them, it comes up!
So, this was a short episode, just talking about the old invercargill hospital.
Thanks for listening :)
If you want to contact me, even just to say you listened, send an email to jaywontdart@gmail.com, j a y w o n t d a r t @ gmail.com, I'd appreciate it.
Have a super happy day, bye.
