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Timaru House Surgery
Timaru House Surgery
This was a small terraced cottage, from where the Doctors lived and worked. It was diagonally opposite the Dun Cow and was demolished in the early 1970s(?)
When Dr.Foster worked from Timaru House patients waited in the backyard and then moved into the back kitchen to sit on wooden benches.
In Dr. Summerville's time patients came in through the front door and waited in the hall until it was their turn, sometimes for as long as two hours. At a certain time the door would be locked and no more patients would be admitted for that surgery. A large grandfather clock ticked away as everybody sat in silence. The doctor would examine and treat patients, stitching, bandaging and mixing medicines. There was no nurse. After being seen patients would leave through the back door into the yard and out into the back lane.
In about the early 1940s a young Dr Fairbairn took over the Practice. He introduced an appointment system (new at that time). When he, his young wife and two sons later moved to Holmeside Avenue he had a dispensary built in the back yard and employed a dispenser. The treatment room became a waiting room. His house in Holmeside Avenue had a treatment room at the front, just off the hall, which Dr Brown used as an anti-natal clinic.
Dr. Brown who became Dr. Fairbairn's partner lived at the bottom of Carr's Bank (now Dunston Bank)