Not long after the Percy Everett building was finished new drug treatments for Tuberculosis made the sanatorium redundant. The complex was transferred to the Hospital and Charities Commission and became what we would now call an Aged Care Facility and a rehabilitation facility for the elderly, with the first 24 patients admitted in December 1955. It was known as the Greenvale Village for the Aged with the name followed in brackets by “Special Hospital for the Aged”. It was renamed the Greenvale Geriatric Centre in 1972, and then the Greenvale Centre in 1984/84. In 1991 there was a merger with Mount Royal Hospital under the name North-West Hospital.
For the first few decades Greenvale village had fewer beds than the sanatorium it replaced. The available beds went up and down from year to year due to renovations and sometimes staff shortages. For example in May 1970 forty-eight beds were added when part of the nurses home was converted for patient use, but it took a few years before all these beds could be put to use. The only major new building after the 1950s was a new one and two story ward complex at the north of the site, Sir William Upjohn House, which was opened in 1974 with 92 beds, allowing some older wards to be closed for renovation. The maximum bed capacity of the Greenvale complex was 337 in the years 1977 to 1980, after which it was reduced to 299 due to restrictions on staffing. The number of beds then remained the same while the total number of staff continued to increase to a maximum of 432 in 1988, the last year for which I have data.
At least until 1988 the functions of the complex remained much the same, although a “semi-acute” hospital ward was added in 1977. At this time the allocation of beds was:
Long-term nursing | 227 |
“Ambulent” (long-term but low-care) | 24 |
Short-term family relief (respite) | 23 |
Semi-acute hospital | 23 |
Rehabilitation | 46 |
Source: https://whp.altervista.org/sanatorium.php

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