In World War II the US Navy built a temporary Naval Hospital in St Columb’s Park, Derry, partly on the site of the new Acorn Farm. An extremely busy Services hospital, it treated thousands of wounded Allied servicemen.

After the war Derry’s Medical Superintendent Officer of Health Dr Russell Abernathy and former Derry mayor Councillor Sir Samuel Orr ensured that the Hospital stayed open to treat victims of the then prevalent and dreaded tuberculosis disease - “TB”. In 1937 County Derry had suffered 350 deaths from TB.

Councillor Orr, chairman of the City‘s Health Committee, represented Derry on the NI Tuberculosis Authority, set up in 1944 to tackle TB. His and Dr Abernathy’s greatest achievement was ensuring the Naval Hospital was retained to treat tuberculosis - the first hospital of its kind in the north-west.

TB treatment at that time consisted of a long hospital stay emphasising good healthy food, fresh air and total rest. Patients stayed in hospital for up to four years.

The wooden huts of St Columb’s Hospital, Browning Drive, on 16 March 1948.

placeholder image — The wooden huts of St Columb’s Hospital, Browning Drive, on 16 March 1948.

By the 1950s TB was under control thanks to new medicines and mass X-rays.

Now called St Columb’s Hospital the buildings’ approximately 140 beds continued to serve local people, latterly as an Eye Hospital.

By 1990 the wooden buildings were demolished. Intended to treat wartime sailors, they had survived to serve the people of the North West for over 40 years and oversaw the decline of TB here. So Derry is fortunate. TB is still the world’s most fatal infectious disease, with 1.25 million deaths in 2023.

[“Altnagelvin’s Thirty Glorious Years: Two Hundred Years of Medical Care in Londonderry” by Cahal Dallat: 1990].