24
CHAPTER 3
Since its inception there have been 2,207 admissions, amongst them 768 new patients.
The traumatic lesions were admitted within 48 hours of injury. The teaching activities
of the unit have expanded during recent years for both undergraduate and postgraduate
teaching. In addition, the unit also deals with the training and postgraduate teaching of
nurses. The unit has been particularly engaged for many years in research of urological
problems of spinal cord injuries, carried out by Mr Cosbie Ross, Mr Gibbon and Dr
Damanski, and Dr Silver did research on problems of spasticity and continued research
on chest movements in paraplegia which he started with me at Stoke Mandeville. The
Southport Unit has also been represented for many years at the annual Stoke Mandeville
Games. There have been discussions to transfer the unit to Liverpool with a great
increase of the number of beds, but so far nothing has materialized.
EDENHALL SPINAL UNIT, MUSSELBURGH, SCOTLAND
This small unit of 22 male and 6 female beds was opened in 1959, but before the setting
up of the unit a number of ex-service paraplegics were treated at Edenhall when the
hospital was under the administration of the former Ministry of Pensions and also an
increasing number of civilian cases when this hospital was taken over in 1956 by the
Ministry of Health. Mr W.Kerr, F.R.C.S.E., who is also a consultant to the Appliance
Department, is in charge of the unit and his statistic of a period from 12 July 1959 to
31 October 1969 show 268 new patients admitted, not immediately after injury but some
time, even several months, later. During the same period, 271 former patients were
readmitted for treatment, largely as a result of pressure sores and urological compli–
cations. Owing to the very small size of the unit, it soon became impossible to admit
patients for routine review unless they came from a very long distance and 545 reviews
were carried out on outpatients.
The problem of immediate access to new traumatic cases is still complicated by the
small size of the unit and because of differences between the neurosurgical and ortho–
paedic departments in Edinburgh. Therefore, the unit has still to rely on orthopaedic
and neurosurgical consultants to carry out the initial treatment and such care as they
can give during the first period of treatment. Although the standard of care has improved
during the last 20 years, this fragmentation between the initial treatment and the long
term rehabilitation and care is still not satisfactory. It is only very recently that Mr Kerr,
the consultant in charge of the spinal unit, has had access to the acute cases admitted
to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh University. However, the Regional Hospital Board
hopes to replace the present unit with a larger, up-to-date unit in the future building
plan.
Very little research activities are carried out but a great deal of teaching is done and
every undergraduate student of Edinburgh University has a lecture on paraplegia from
Mr Kerr in a half-day visit to the unit, the students reporting in groups of 12 every
month. Moreover, postgraduate students working for the Fellowship of the Royal
College of Surgeons have a postgraduate day of lectures and demonstrations once a
year. Furthermore, all nurses from two of the Edinburgh Schools of Nursing have a
half-day of lectures and demonstrations and postgraduate neurological nurses attend
