Sheriff Hill - Health

Health

Sheriff Hill was once the site of a lunatic asylum, which was opened in the 1830s and situated on Sour Milk Hill Lane. Sheriff Hill Lunatic Asylum tended 86 patients in 1844 and continued to attract admissions until its closure in 1860. Soon after, work began on a 38–bed isolation hospital at what is today Queen Elizabeth Avenue. The first building was completed in 1878 and others were added later. The 4-acre (1.6 ha) site was enclosed by a large stone wall tipped with barbed wire and broken glass, and by 1903 the hospital comprised a main block with an administrative building in the centre with a ward block on each side, another three-ward block, a porter's lodge, a steam disinfecting building, a laundry and a mortuary. The hospital had a maximum capacity of 78 patients, who were tended by two resident doctors and 10 nurses.

During the period 1918 to 1939, the isolation hospital remained the sole medical provision in Sheriff Hill. Faced with an increase in population, Gateshead Council decided that a new general hospital should be built. In March 1938, preliminary work started on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on the site of the isolation hospital; the foundations were laid in 1939 but the outbreak of World War II delayed the building work. The new hospital was opened by Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI, on 18 March 1948. It is the largest hospital in Gateshead and has since been expanded, most notably with the opening of the North East NHS Surgery Centre in 2008, which cost £13.3 million.

According to official data, Sheriff Hill residents experience comparatively poor health; 13.7% of the adult population are considered clinically obese, around 38% of adults smoke compared with the UK average of 25.9% of adults, and 37% of adults are binge drinkers. The average life expectancy for men is 77.9 years, the same as the UK average, but for women is 78 years; four years below the UK national average.