...whose days are numbered...

“This used to be the workhouse!” said H, the english lady who was the project manager at the Nightingale Centre. Her eyes gazed at the red bricked building looming across the lawns that must have seen better days.

“What is a workhouse?” I asked looking up from my work. My eyes too, could not help staring at the forlorn-looking relic that could be seen from the large glass window.

“I hate that place!” said E, another english colleague of mine, rubbing the mammographic film in front of her with a piece of smudged rag.

“Why?” My fingers stopped playing with the keyboard, halfway through entering the patients’ cases gathered for the day.

“Rats! Full of them! Running around your feet! Went there to get past patients’ records. That was to be my first and last time! Came out screaming.. Let someone else do the digging!” said E again, putting up the film against the light and scrutinizing it.

“H! You haven’t answered my question!” I turned my face towards H who was at the far side of the glass pane.

“Oh! Sorry! I was drifting back years in time. The workhouse was a place where the poor and hopeless came to stay. Too poor to sustain and too sick to be able to care for themselves. Men, separated from their women, mothers from their children. All for a streak of hope in living. Cleaning, mending doing whatever was necessary to have a roof above their heads and meagre meals to fill their empty tummies."

“Is that so?” I sighed. I turned my face back to the computer screen, running fingers across the buttons in front of me.

“Yes! So much so that in the last century, if a child misbehaves then the parents would threaten them by saying, “If you are naughty, you will end up in the workhouse!””

My fingers halted. It took a while before they ventured on their moves again.

On my way back to the bus stop, I pondered across the lawn again. At the once majestic structure, drinking in the scenery. Closing my eyes, I could picture the sad looks on faces and hear the sounds of their sufferings….

Then I recollected my steps, past the Siemens Park (the medical equipment manufacturer and supplier) signatured with its pristine white buildings towards Elizabeth Slinger Road to catch the number 47 bus back to the campus. Two uniformed policemen strutted past, each one high on horseback, looking magnificent from the Police Headquarters on the right side of the road.

Early the next morning, I made a point to arrive earlier than the norm, tracing my footsteps around the grounds. Under the white cherry blossoms, I stopped and closed my eyes; listening and imagining old conversations. The fragrance of rhododendrons filled the air amidst lavender buds and bright red peonies.

The sound of siren from a passing police car broke the silence. My eyelids flew open to dilapitated sites with rubbish strewn everywhere which can be seen from afar. This is the fate of this once beautiful place. Soon to be relocated at a new hospital, further down south, nearer to the International Manchester Airport.

This workhouse that eventually became the War Hospital during the World War was a tribute to Florence Nightingale, “The Lady With The Lamp” who spent some of her years here. Like The Nightingale Centre, my days as a volunteer for CADET 2 (Computer Aided Detection of Cancer) were numbered too. The place was slowly evolving. Changing…

Change is inevitable. Change we must. Who would want to remain in old, battered and rotting buildings. Only to be invested with pests…like the rats that E was so scared of and which made her ran helter skelter, screaming her heart out? So think! Do we want to end up being like those rodents? Running around people’s feet? Digging for crumbs?

Time to wake up! Time for change!

(..to be continued)