Press Photo New Hospital branch is like a vision of the future - KSB32825

New Hospital branch is like a vision of the future. Latest ideas in Cancer Research are incorporated " Exceeding the wildest dreams of Florence Nightingale, the new Sutton, Surrey branch of the famous Royal Marsden Hospital is a model of comfort and functional modernity. Here, every new development, from radiation equipment for cancer treatment to new materials in furniture has been incorporated. The stark white walls of old have given way to pleasing pastel murals, and carpets add to the generally hotel-like atmosphere. Communications and liaison are emphasized; pneumatic message-carriers, individual phones for patients to call the nurse, and a staff-calling system. The Royal Marsden became the first hospital in this country to use artificial radio-isotopes in the treatment of a patient. That was in 1948, but since then, as a stronger links have been forged between medicine and science, a new branch to promote cancer research was needed. After many delays, the present Sutton site was acquired in 1950. By 1960, plans had been drawn up, and the necessary funds made available. Gradually the building, a combination of bricks and concrete rose from the chalk sub-soil. Now, three years later, the nurses are admiring the well-lit, glass paneled wards; the two huge six million electron volt linear accelerators for the cancer treatment, which are buried deep in the radiation-proof ground. And in the laboratories, scientists continue the endless quest to make the word E˜cancerE™ less terrifying to man. Specimens, drugs and case-histories are whisked from one department to another in an electronically controlled vacuum tubs.

Photo is undated.

Photo measures 8 x 10 inches.