Medical Records

Skittlers

Looking for a bit of advice..How do a person go about getting their medical records from an illness they had 48years ago..
The family doctor of that time is no longer alive -No compuers then.
The doctor in the hospital who treated is also passed away..
Would there be medical records available if so where would you start
to get that information..Hope someone can advise..

sam34

if you were in hospital you could try there - you would need to write to hospital admin and say you are requesting notes under freedom of information act. i dont know if they would have files that old still stored, but its worth a shot.

if its just gp records and the gp is dead then i doubt there's any way of accessing them.

The_Conductor

If the files were sent to central archives- its pretty much toss a coin as to whether they are still available, or whether they have long disintegrated into dust unfortunately. The army and several government departments lost a lot of data......

Skittlers

Thank you both..Best thing is expect they are gone so if they are then thats life i guess..Will start with hospital and go from there..Fingers crossed...

mp22

I got some records from a hosptial beloning to the wife that were over 20 years old they have put most of them on microfilm and will send you a copy of the film if you ask nicely.Central libarys have readers for this film and can print out the records.

Skittlers

mp22 wrote: »

I got some records from a hosptial beloning to the wife that were over 20 years old they have put most of them on microfilm and will send you a copy of the film if you ask nicely.Central libarys have readers for this film and can print out the records.

What im looking for is 1961 records thats 48years ago..
I went to the hospital today and got a name and number of the guy who
is in charge of Freedom of information..Girl in office told me its highly unlikely
that records from 1961 would be still available..She said as far as she thinks they only kept records for about 10years in them times.
Oh well i will find out next week..Nothing ventured nothing Gained..

Sum Sea

does any one have any information on linden convalesent home.Iwas there as a small child with rheumatic heart{no sign of it now}for 1 year .Also on another occasion i was there with my siblings when my mother was ill.What type of place was it? Any information .. on this would be great.We [my siblings] and i are dying with curiosity as to what type of place it was Any one else out there ever in this place? thanks

Kristopherus

sam34 wrote: »

if you were in hospital you could try there - you would need to write to hospital admin and say you are requesting notes under freedom of information act. i dont know if they would have files that old still stored, but its worth a shot.

if its just gp records and the gp is dead then i doubt there's any way of accessing them.

I would advise that you make informal enquiries in the first place, as going down the FOI route could be costly. However if you had a medical card (dont know if they existed in the sixties) the under GMS rules you may be in with a chance that your file may have passed down to whoever replaced the original GP.

The_Conductor

Sum Sea wrote: »

does any one have any information on linden convalesent home.Iwas there as a small child with rheumatic heart{no sign of it now}for 1 year .Also on another occasion i was there with my siblings when my mother was ill.What type of place was it? Any information .. on this would be great.We [my siblings] and i are dying with curiosity as to what type of place it was Any one else out there ever in this place? thanks

Sum Sea- Linden Convalescent Home was associated with Loughlinstown Hospital and was located on Grove Avenue in Blackrock. There is an interesting thread on dublin.ie that may be of interest to you here: http://www.dublin.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=6834

mags16

Hi Sum Sea

I grew up across the road from Linden. It was run by the Sisters of Charity. It was a large grey building with steps leading up to a large front door. Inside there was a huge, black, old-fashioned lift in the hall. The whole place smelled of polish and disinfectant. The grounds were lovely - there was a handball alley and a cornfield. A fabulous playground for young kids like us. A gang of us would sneak around the grounds regularly in the hope of getting chased by a long-habited, wimple wearing nun. It ever happened - they didn't mind the kids of the area playing in the grounds.

Talbot Lodge and Madonna House were on the site also. Eamon and Sinead De Valera spent their last years in Talbot Lodge. I remember when he arrived - all the kids of the area lined the road to have a look. We were regularly brought to mass in the chapel in Linden and Dev would always sit in the same seat. He shook my hand once after I did a reading and my mum told me not to wash my hand for a week!!

In the late 1970s/ early 1980s, Madonna House replaced a children's home that was there before. MH consisted of a number of bungalow-type houses, each housing approx 10 children. Each house had a house mother and a house father. There are varying reports of people's experiences there. I know one girl who spent a few years in Madonna House and she looks back fondly on that time.

I am open to correction here but I think that the film, Lamb, is based on real events that took place in Madonna House. A house parent became very attached to a young boy and left the country with him.

In the 1980s, Talbot lodge was knocked down by builders, even though it was a lovely building with historical value. The council put a preservation on the rubble, if I remember correctly. Of course, the developers got their way and built houses on the site. Linden has now been converted into apartments. The cornfield and the handball alley have also been built on.

I think that the Madonna House bungalows might still be standing, uninhabited of course.

Sea Sum, I hope this has been of some use to you. It was been a nice trip down memory lane for me.

drzhivago

Skittlers wrote: »

Looking for a bit of advice..How do a person go about getting their medical records from an illness they had 48years ago..
The family doctor of that time is no longer alive -No compuers then.
The doctor in the hospital who treated is also passed away..
Would there be medical records available if so where would you start
to get that information..Hope someone can advise..

Legal advice a number of years ago was hospitals had to maintain records for 20 years after that they could be destroyed

Many hospitals took this as an excuse to clean out

A few cases in recent years have thrown that into doubt and some are now frantically guarding what records exists

It is very unlikely the gP records exist, may have been handed over to another GP but if you never went with that GP then they would have been destroyed