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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(?). Timaru is a town in New Zealand's south island.
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 Holmside Avenue he had a dispensary built in the back yard and employed a dispenser. The treatment room became a waiting room. His house in Holmside 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)
Comments
I am the youngest of Dr Fairbairn's three sons, having been born in 1950 at Holmside Avenue (note the spelling without an e after the m). My father retired in 1975 to Scotland where he lived for 15 years before moving back to Durham in 1991 where he died the same year. My mother died in 1997.
Posted by: John Fairbairn at December 20, 2008 8:25 PM
Thanks for the information about Dr Fairbairn. The correct spelling of Holmside Avenue has been noted.
Posted by: Whickham Web Wanderers at December 21, 2008 10:52 AM