Have you ever wished to look behind the creaking, cobwebbed doors of a decommissioned hospital? Thanks to photographer Leland Kent of Abandoned Southeast, you can now. Within, you’ll learn about their terrible histories and witness the appalling ruin and decay left behind by years of neglect, as well as the horrifying relics of medical treatments that would be illegal today. Are you feeling brave? Let’s have a peek around by clicking or scrolling…
1. The Derelict Community Hospital
A hospital that was once crucial to the health of a tiny rural town is hidden behind its uninviting murky grey concrete facade. The architecture is from the second part of the twentieth century, with mirrored glass and a projecting, strong concrete entryway supported by a massive concrete column. According to Abandoned Southeast, locals were active from the beginning, donating funds to match a government grant so that it could be erected.
While it did not have the most cutting-edge technology, as seen by this intimidating array of medical apparatus, the new hospital did have an emergency room, surgical suites, an intensive care unit, a women’s health department, and 60 patient beds. Most of all, care was available to everyone – even if you couldn’t afford it.
Financial Woes
However, money became an issue, and the hospital was said to be collapsing under the weight of bills owing. Residents of the town protested at a council meeting in the 1990s to keep the hospital open. It was instead taken over by a larger institution in order to bring the budget back on track. Within one of the operating rooms, which is currently devoid of equipment and has disintegrating walls and ceiling.
Closed for good
Unfortunately, the hospital died with little possibility of recovery. Departments and services closed, and patients disappeared. The debt was too big to recoup from, therefore the institution was forced to shut. Except for these two lights left behind in the operating theater, which were maybe too difficult to break down fast, most of the hospital’s goods were sold off. They now tower over the empty room like a pair of eerie, watching eyes.
A second life
This restroom appears to be horrifying, with a narrow metal hydrotherapy bath. This is not a place to unwind! On the plus side, the new owner has leased the land back to the city for $1. (74p). It’s now utilized for community activities including farmer’s markets and yearly festivals. A portion of the structure has even been transformed into a haunted house attraction, replete with fake blood, gore, and terrifying monster dolls – yikes! This eerie second life was a smashing success, raising $30,000 (£22k) in one month.
2. The abandoned prison hospital
Decades of filth surround a lone gurney left adrift in this decaying prison hospital. Take note of the black mould creeping up the wall, as wire in the ceiling swings down, revealing itself behind missing tiles. Untouched for some time, the old telecom system can be seen within two enormous wall boxes, as well as a rusted mailbox.
According to Abandoned Southeast, the clinic began as a TB hospital in the early 1900s, treating patients stricken with the terrible disease who couldn’t afford a doctor. You may see sample pots dumped on the floor through the open entrance of this laboratory. The cabinets and cupboards of the biology and biochemistry labs are thrown open, and bottles of chemicals are carelessly left behind.
Decaying patient ward
This chamber has been completely demolished, with brick walls exposed and peeling paint and rubbish covering the floor. Mural shards cling to the wall, and the window blinds have been distorted. Because this is a large room with several hospital beds, it may have been an intensive care unit or a standard ward.
Repurposed for the prison system
This chamber has been completely demolished, with brick walls exposed and peeling paint and rubbish covering the floor. Mural shards cling to the wall, and the window blinds have been distorted. Because this is a large room with several hospital beds, it may have been an intensive care unit or a standard ward.
Well-preserved library
Have a look at this magnificent jail library. Despite the chaos, it has survived better than the other rooms in the facility, with the volumes on the shelves remaining in topic order. Reduced finances for the prison hospital were a result of state budget cuts within the Department of Prisons. It closed in 2010 and has since been abandoned.
The Bad Debt Hospital
A dismal corridor inside Georgia’s Bad Debt Hospital seems like something out of a horror film – and with a name like that, you can tell the narrative for this defunct medical facility isn’t a cheerful one. According to Abandoned Southeast, the 52-bed hospital was built in 1968 and included an emergency room, intensive care facilities, and 150 employees.
Abandoned operating theatre
Look at all of the abandoned medical equipment in this strangely vacant operating room. Envision the old technology creepily humming back to life! The hospital’s demise, according to Leland Kent, was a corruption scandal that soon pushed the organization into financial problems. It closed in 1974, but reopened in 1985 when a non-profit organization leased the space from the County Government.
Change of hands
Instead of a new beginning, the hospital was allegedly about $1 million (£737k) in debt by the early 1990s. To avoid another closure, a management business was handed responsibility. It’s odd to see these remarkably well-preserved wingback armchairs covered in beautiful leather in such a dilapidated structure. With a nice light, wooden drawers, and even a hospital rubber stamp remaining on the desk, this place appears to be a director’s office.
Mismanagement allegations
The institution was plagued by financial malfeasance, with mysteriously declining cash noted by a regulating authority. They also discovered that the hospital lacked sufficient insurance to cover the emergency department doctors. According to Abandoned Southeast, the sheriff, attorneys, and hospital authority officials stormed the management company’s CEO’s office in 1998, demanding his resignation. He soon agreed. Mother Nature is already reclaiming the wards, with vines running up the walls.
Frozen in time
Bad Debt Hospital was out of business by 2001, thanks to Medicaid cuts. Employees were laid off, and subsequently the doors were permanently closed. Nobody came back to get the equipment. According to Abandoned Southeast, vandals soon entered into the empty building and stole important copper wire. Within this medical mausoleum, smoldering patient records and time-warp hospital technology remain imprisoned.
3. The Decaying Mental Health Institute
The towering main structure, a terrifying Gothic Revival-style institution with steeply-pitched roofs, corbelled brick cornices, and arched windows, hides a grim past. It was designed by the McDonald Brothers in the mid-1880s to promote good health for patients with therapeutic environments, following the design philosophy of psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride. As a result, it’s set on a 1,140-acre hilltop farm, and the buildings are spaced so that each block gets plenty of sunlight, fresh air, solitude, and garden vistas.
Empty observation rooms
Yet it’s only a ghost of its former self these days. Within this corridor, which is flanked by locked rooms on each side, paint is flaking off the walls and ceiling. The interior glass pane may have been installed to keep an at-risk patient under monitoring. In 1889, the four-story hospital opened its doors to 156 patients. It cost $250,000 (£184,500) to build and could house up to 350 patients.
Outlawed medical practices
This appears to be a school or therapy room, with seats arranged in a circle and a whiteboard with weak instructions. Yet, the wooden restraint chair in the center is unsettling due to the straps at the feet and waist. Insulin shock therapy, lobotomies, and electric shock therapy were among the heinous therapies utilized at the hospital in the past.
Rapid development
By 1960, the facility had grown fast to handle almost 3,200 patients and 250 employees, with additional buildings built. The high ceilings and very tall windows, which allow lots of light inside, reflect the notion of healing space. Several of the old buildings were removed in 2008 to make way for a contemporary $58.5 million (£43 million) mental facility on the site. Fortunately, the Gothic Revival structure was on the National Register of Historic Sites, so it was spared destruction.
Patients’ confiscated belongings
The old structures are now in decay. These luggage were taken from patients upon arrival and never returned. The contemporary hospital has 2,500 patients, although only 300 of them reside on-site. It has an annual budget of around $35 million (£26 million).
