The Fever Hospital at Heanish

Photograph of the Fever Hospital at Heanish.

Courtesy of Mr Alasdair MacArthur

From the middle of the nineteenth century, Sanitary Laws were applied on Tiree to keep the island clean and infected patients were isolated. In 1892 the Sanitary Inspector visited the island and cautioned “several parties in regard to dung heaps in my opinion too near to houses”.

In 1893 three people died from typhoid which affected Balephuil. In 1895 an epidemic of scarlet fever swept through Tiree. The County Medical Officer, Dr. McNeill, had recommended the building of an isolation hospital on the island in 1893 and in 1905 the Fever Hospital was built in Heanish.

Made of corrugated iron lined with wood, it comprised two-bedded wards set at each end of the building with a kitchen, nurse’s room and bathroom in the centre. Outside was a washhouse, mortuary, disinfecting room and coalhouse. It was last used in the 1940s and sold in the 1960s as a private house.

Black and white postcard of Heanish machair and old the Fever Hospital.

Heanish machair and old the Fever Hospital. (Original postcard in Filing Cabinet 8 drawer 2)