Waikato Hospital celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, and is launching a commemorative book to celebrate.
The Village on the Hill: Celebrating 125 Years of Waikato Hospital will be launched tomorrow, and focuses largely on photographs from the hospital’s history.
Waikato DHB’s Team Leader of Photography and Audiovisual Mark Forster-King says the photographs used are “a selection of some of the many thousands of images that document the hospital”.
Included are previously unpublished photographs of the hospital’s 2004 surgery to separate conjoined twins Sarah and Abbey Hose.
The twins’ parents support the inclusion of the photographs, and say it is “only fitting”.
“The girls were lucky to be cared for by a truly dedicated team, and we had confidence in a positive outcome,” they say.
The book also includes a profile section where staff members discuss their jobs.
Many of the photos show life behind the scenes, including meal preparation, lab technicians and the never-ending hospital laundry cycle.
Mr Forster-King says the images are “kind of neat” as they allow patients and the community to see a different side of the hospital.
“Most patients… tend to only see the clinical staff and treatment area, but what they rarely see are these things that go on behind the scenes, that make this place tick,” he says.
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