Operations on the Kitchen Table
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Memories of operations on kitchen tables before the start of the NHS in 1947.
Before the birth of the NHS in 1947 when patients had to pay for their care, medicine was a totally different type of occupation. Here a Welsh doctor remembers performing operations on kitchen tables. Apparently they preferred to operate on the table as it was kept clean, though gangrene was still often a problem afterwards.
From:
People's History of Wales Kill or Cure
First broadcast
:
07 March 1996
Teachers' notes
Age Group : 11-14,14-16
Subject : History
Topic : Modern Wales and Britain
Keywords : Health and medicine, history of the NHS,
Notes : This clip looks at what appears to us today as unusual forms of treatment - why were operations done on kitchen tables? Could this happen today? If not why not? Research into the history of gangrene and its effect on medical treatments.
