History
The hospital was opened as the Royal Naval Hospital by King Edward VII on July 26, 1905 as a replacement for the 252 bed Melville Hospital (Naval), which was not large enough to deal with the increasing numbers of Naval personnel moving into Chatham. The hospital has a large Grade II Listed Laundry Tower and Chimney. The chimney acts as a local landmark over Gillingham. On 15 January 1961 the hospital was transferred by the Admiralty to the NHS and became part of the Medway Health Authority. The hospital closed for modernisation, and after some delays, opened again in 1965 under the name "Medway Hospital". After a £60 million development in 1999, the hospital changed its name to "Medway Maritime Hospital" and services were transferred from neighbouring hospitals St Bartholomew's in Rochester and All Saints' in Chatham.
In 2013 the hospital hit controversy when it took six hours to admit a man suffering from a curable virus, who later died.
Read more about this topic: Medway Maritime Hospital
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