On 29th of March 1849, the throne of Lahore was captured by the East India Company soldiers. As the fighting ended the Britishers went looking for doctors for their wounded soldiers. They found only Ayurvedic ‘vaidya’ and Islamic ‘hakeems’.

In the end their own ‘allopathic’ doctors, as also a variety of homeopathic and herbal doctors helped. By then the foreign invaders decided that they were here to stay and Lahore being the capital of the Punjab needed proper medical facilities. The area east of Anarkali Bazaar was the huge garden of the Sikh general Hari Singh, so they decided to use the entire garden to build a series of hospitals.

The very first to come up was the Mayo Hospital, a design based on that of Pudon, the Italian architect, and was engineered by Rai Bahadar Kanahya Lal. The entire building cost Rs150,000, which at current rates would, given gold parity, approximately Rs220 million. It was named after Lord Mayo, the then Viceroy of British India. Completed in 1871 it started operating in 1872. Ten years later the King Edward Medical College came up to supplement the need for trained doctors.

To cater to needs of women, in 1889 also within the same garden space came up the Lady Aitchison Hospital. But as Mayo Hospital catered for the masses, it was also decided to build a first-rate additional hospital next to Mayo Hospital called the Albert Victor Hospital. The foundation stone of this elitist hospital was laid by Sir James Lyall, the Lt. Governor of the Punjab in May 1890. On the first of January 1892, this grand beautiful hospital started taking in patients.

Just opposite the Mayo, Albert Victor and King Edward College (now called a university) is the Ewing Hall that once housed part of the FC College. Just behind this hostel building is one of Lahore’s eldest Christian graveyards, now in a terrible condition, which has the graves of the Mughal-era indigo farmers and traders of European origin.

Now let me get to the reason all these hospitals, all historical original and protected under the law, need to be mentioned. We live in terrible times and our bureaucrats very easily fall victim to offered by property agents, most of them in politics for this very reason.

Let us take up the case of the Albert Victor Hospital. A small area to the back is being knocked down. The utter neglect of the hospital authorities means that the exquisite inner done with specially made granite bricks are beginning to fall, at least as is its white painting. It is by any account a unique and rare building.

The plan, according to hospital sources, is to reconstruct a much bigger hospital with 500 additional beds. If the amazing arches are demolished it will destroy the very fabric of this ‘protected’ building. Just to add that an application against this terrible plan has been submitted to the Unesco body that acts against heritage destruction.

A word about Mayo Hospital. The back portion is being knocked down to build a higher portion to expand into a hospital with even more beds. It already has 3,000 beds and the plan to reach 4,000-plus bed is a bizarre thought. One understands that a construction millionaire, not surprisingly a politician of sorts, backed by the establishment wants to paint this as ‘progress’. Medical experts contacted are of the opinion that it will seriously degrade existing services.

This building is a historically protected building, now in use for over 152 years. There is absolutely no need to tinker with this exquisite building. If anything, it must be conserved and maintained so that it is used for hundreds of years more. That should be a feather in Lahore’s cap.

Now let us move to Ewing Hall opposite the medical college. There was a move to once knock it down, which was carried in the media about 10 years ago. The FCC establishment denied the move. So, the massive building is disused and is falling apart. There is an urgent need to conserve the beautiful building, and maybe even allow medical students to live there, and the price they pay should be used to improve and conserve this building.

Lastly, about the Christian graveyard behind Ewing Hall. This is a Christian graveyard that the Mughals allowed, for it was located at some distance from the walled city. The major trade of Lahore then was indigo, which was based in the Nilli Bazar inside Lohari Gate, and the dried flowers were crushed outside the gateway. Surely the nearby girls school has an interest in looking after this historic place.

Let us look at the universal phenomena of hospitals wanting to expand. In Cambridge (England), the famous Addenbrooke’s Hospital has massive grounds around it. Over the last five years six major hospitals of England, including the Royal Papworth, which caters to royalty, has moved nearby in a new building. Now specialist hospitals are coming up and the plan is for nine massive hospitals to be near one another.

There surely is a need for the government to find a lot of empty ground on Lahore’s outskirts to house several such hospitals together, with ample parking buildings, so that patient referrals are easy of patients. The location of Mayo and Albert Victor and Lady Aitchison is such that it cannot accommodate so many patients, let along the mobs that come along.

Added to the congestion that already exists in the area, it surely will be impossible to control the thousands that converge here. Our cultural system is such that with each patient come along a dozen relatives and friends. So given the total beds put together at least 100,000 people converge. Doctors have a headache keeping people out, who end up fighting and beating medical staff.

The destruction of Lahore’s British-era’s best buildings needs to be stopped immediately. A long-term hospital plan needs to be devised. Already enough damage has been done to our historical treasures, which reflects our social and political illiteracy. The time to act is now.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2024