From the time he’d been fascinated as a toddler with the family doctor’s stethoscope and syringes, Shubham had always wanted to be a doctor. But circumstances ordained otherwise and his childhood dream remained unfulfilled. But Shubham was a fighter and not prepared to give up entirely so easily. “Okay”, he said, “I can’t become a doctor and heal people. But I can open a hospital which will offer a ray of hope even to poor patients who have lost hope”. And that’s precisely what he did once all the logistics were in place.
When his hospital, located on the fringe of fields and a forest, opened its doors, patients, especially the poor, made a bee line for it. Highly qualified, dedicated doctors, state of the art facilities and reasonable rates made it a much sought after treatment centre. But that’s where and how the problems began. The majority of patients who were brought to Shubham’s hospital were hopeless cases or terminal cases who had been turned away from other hospitals.
In keeping with his never-say-die motto and ethos, Shubham’s hospital never turned anyone away and provided everyone the best possible care. This provided considerable satisfaction to Shubham but the high mortality statistics soon brought a bad reputation to his hospital. The whispers began: nobody comes back alive from there. It wasn’t that patients stopped coming or receiving quality care. But the fact that his nursing home had become known as a place of death depressed Shubham and disillusioned, he closed it.
The years rolled on and the building itself began falling apart and dying. It was at this terminal stage that the Fates forced us to seek shelter in it. Driving from one village to another, we were caught in a storm followed by a torrential downpour. The hospital ruins were the only shelter in sight and within reach and we spent the night there. But what a night. Even my companion, a staunch disbeliever in things supernatural or paranormal, was rattled. Throughout the night, we heard eerie moans and groans, voices, what sounded like trolleys being moved and frequently, there would be strong whiffs of disinfectant assailing our nostrils. It was only over the next couple of days that we made inquiries and discovered that we had sheltered in a place of death and the story, both inspiring and sad, I’ve narrated above of Shubham’s hospital. Are all abandoned hospitals haunted and if so, why?
Curiously, it isn’t only abandoned hospitals that are haunted. Paranormal activity is often reported even by functional hospitals. Haunted hospitals are in fact located all over the world and incidentally, writer Kristy Crowley has coined a word for haunted hospitals which were once spectacular: “spooktacular”. Crowley has included the Sai Ying Pun Psychiatry Hospital in Hong Kong in the 10 most haunted hospitals in the world. It served as the lone mental hospital in all of Hong Kong from 1947 to 1961. “Abandoned in the 1970s, ghostly rumors circulate of a woman crying, mysterious footsteps, visions of a devilish man bursting into flames and thunderous sounds emanating from the building. If you and your ghoul friends care to visit, you might possibly encounter some decapitated spirits wandering the halls at night—visitors have reported such experiences.” Happenings at other hospitals on Crowley’s list are even more chilling and creepy. Incidentally, guided haunted tours are conducted at most of these hospitals.
There are several explanations, including the time warp theory for haunted hospitals. Primarily, emotional and physical distress and suffering experienced over a period of time before dying, as in the case of many terminal patients, or the distress experienced even during a brief illness can have a tremendous impact on the atma of an average person, weakening it considerably. In this weakened state, it is not easy for such an atma to make the crossing to the other world, even when assisted by spirit guides, and it continues to reside where it died, such as a hospital.
And while most scientists continue to offer interesting rational explanations such as quantum mechanics, automatism or an “altered state of consciousness” and so on for almost every paranormal or supernatural happening, there is a section of scientists, paramedics, doctors and others with qualified credentials who are open to exploring paranormal explanations. Author Richard Estep, himself a paramedic, has documented many paranormal experiences in his book The World’s Most Haunted Hospitals: True-Life Paranormal Encounters in Asylums, Hospitals, and Institutions. And Estep concurs with the distress explanation. “Hospitals and mental care facilities are all emotional powder-kegs in one way or another. The average community hospital has the joy of childbirth going on in one part of the building, while in another you have patients breathing their last. In between are those suffering from long-term illnesses and the full spectrum of afflictions both physical and mental. Wherever one sees strong emotions, it seems inevitable that one also encounters ghosts…”
Just a couple of weeks ago, Mysterious Universe reported that a haunted hospital in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA, is being demolished. Author Jocelyne LeBlanc wrote that “An abandoned hospital full of paranormal activity in one of America’s most haunted cities is currently being demolished.” The Kuhn Memorial State Hospital was in operation for over a century before being closed down in 1989. “ A tragic discovery was uncovered at the old abandoned hospital in 2015 when a group of ghost hunters found the remains of a 69-year-old woman at the location… there was even a local horror movie that was filmed there…”
Some people who have visited the location in the past have heard voices, wrote LeBlanc, such as the film crew who were shooting the horror movie and their camera captured a disembodied voice saying, “Oh, my God.” The demolition of this hospital is expected to be completed by March 9, 2019, when a residential, retail, and recreation facility will be built on the 12.8 acre property. It remains to be seen whether the planned residential, retail, and recreation facility will, like the hospital, also be haunted.