A hospital for your ambition

[venta]

What is it with Oxford's hospitals ?

For years, two of the main hospitals in the city were called respectively the John Radcliffe and the Radcliffe Infirmary. People frequently referred to either as "the Radcliffe".

Why yes, since you ask, that did cause quite a lot of confusion.

This morning I headed up to The Nuffield, Headington, for a physio appointment. I was running late (having broken the cardinal rule of Oxford driving, notably do not go up Divinity Road when in a hurry). I then wasted twenty minutes in various different departments until we finally deduced that I should have been at Nuffield Hospital Oxford (The Manor). Which is also in Headington.

Next time anyone builds a hospital in Oxford, can we lobby them to give it a name which is, like, distinct from all the other medical establishments ?

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The Manor Hospital is now a Nuffield? That's news to me. (I believe it, but I hadn't a clue it had happened.)

However. The "Oxford Radcliffe" has been known as JR or JR2 to locals since - well, since it opened properly, I guess, so July 1972*. The RI is/was the RI and/or the Infirmary. I've never come across anyone mixing the two up, particularly since the two have never really had much overlap. I can see how they could get mixed up if you don't know either hospital, but honestly you're the first person to mention confusing the two that I can ever recall. Curious.


* How to tell how old Oxford-born people are without explicitly asking. If they admit they were born in the RI, they are older than 36.5. If they were born in the JR they are younger than 36.25. If they are exactly my age, they were born in a makeshift ward in the Churchill, thanks to a bit of poor service-transfer planning. :D

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I vote for the Radfield. Or the Nufcliffe.

Yup. The Nufcliffe.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a Nuffield, as distinct from The Nuffield. While I don't think I can blame anyone for this morning's confusion other than myself, there are a number of people who I feel could have made things clearer.

When I first realised I was in the wrong place, I rang The Manor and said "I'm at the wrong end of the hospital, in the NHS bit, I'll be there in a few minutes". It'd have been very helpful if the guy I spoke to had pointed out that they didn't have an NHS bit, and thus I was clearly in the wrong place.

Also if the people at The Manor referred to it as "The Manor" it would help.

Anyone who knows (or, now, knew) there were two Radcliffes used the JR/RI terminology and had no problem with it. However, on a number of occasions I've had to queueueue at the reception of one or other of them while the person at the front of the queue had it carefully explained to them that they were on completely the wrong side of the city.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've just been lucky with my queueueuing then, I guess. :D (Or not, given how much time I've wasted in A&E over the years, for different reasons.)

Doh! to the man at The Manor. Yeah, the NHS bit would be a huge clue. At least the two aren't 4 miles apart, anyway.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Tangentially, whenever the Oxford Times uses "NOC" in a headline, I think of No Overall Control (as in local government) rather than Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

What are the JR and RI called now, then?

...and now I am terrified of turning up at the wrong Nuffield for Saturday's MRI...

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

JR is the John Radcliffe. RI isn't a hospital any more.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The RI is called Closed. :)

Strictly speaking, the main hospital is now the Oxford Radcliffe but you'll note that the website calls it the John Radcliffe. :D (The RI never had the word 'John' in its name.)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The RI isn't any more, it closed down a while back. Dunno what's on that site now.

The only time I went there was for the Eye Hospital bit, which involved cycling across Oxford in the dead of night with one hand clasped to my excruciatingly painful eye. I hadn't called an ambulance, out of some confused feeling that it was poor etiquette to do so for oneself.

[uitlander]

Can I suggest you adopt the Reading protcol, and from now on refer to your major IT businesses and your central shopping centre as Oracle. You'll find it makes everything so much more intuitive.

I always thought 'The Radcliffe' meant the infirmary, as people also spoke of 'The JR'. But until today I didn't know there were two Nuffields in the hospital context.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nah, the Radcliffe is a library :)

There really aren't enough names to go round in Oxford. See also "Clarendon".

[venta.livejournal.com]

The Manor ir private only, so if you're NHS you definitely want the Windmill Rd one :)

(I didn't have any written correspondence from my appointment, or I might have noticed that the address of the hospital didn't match up with the location I supposed it to be in).

[venta.livejournal.com]

No, they're merely separated by the London Road roadworks :)

They are pretty close, though. Certainly easier to get between them than from the RI to the JR.

If you've gone to A&E and survived, you are pretty lucky. Both the JR and the RI (not A&E in that case, obviously) have had serious goes at killing friends of mine. I dread injuring myself in Oxford (even more than I dread injuring myself in general).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes. Even allowing for 26^3 being quite a large number, we have far more Things then TLAs these days. I wish I could remember what the mistake along those lines which I keep making is.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

A&E have always been fine (if a bit ineffectual, at least in smallclanger's case - we've checked him out "AMA" [but with full approval from nurses] twice now, since he was clearly better after 4 hours of waiting) - it's the District Nurse system that nearly killed me [warning: link contains some TMI]. Oh, and there was the time I died all by myself on a ward in the JR (April 1994), but they did at least bring me back. :D

[uitlander]

Foolish child - that's the 'RSL'. How could you possibly confuse that with the 'RI' or the 'JR'?

Tush and pish!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually I didn't mean the RSL, I meant the Camera - thus further proving my own point, I feel!

[uitlander]

I'd like to have a good response to that. Only I'm so busy giggling....

[dave [earth.li] (from livejournal.com)]

Is the RI the bit that is now Keble Student accomodation, or is it the bit that the university is in the process of remodelling?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yikes. The TMI sounds thoroughly nasty, and I'm not surprised you were freaked out about it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia, he say:

"The site has been earmarked for expansion of the humanities and mathematics departments in the University of Oxford."

... so I presume the latter.