Hospital Ghosts

The sight of a ghostly nurse, gliding through darkened corridors has long been a trope of horror movies and literature. But where does this come from? Are hospitals more haunted than other buildings? And if so, why?

In Bath we have our own haunted hospital, the Mineral Waters Hospital on Upper Borough Walls. It is an imposing Georgian building that opened for business in 1739 and is currently awaiting redevelopment. Across the road is the old leper hospital and between them is an underground passageway. It is that passageway that is the focal point of our haunting. For many years, nurses described being caught underground when the lights flickered out, leaving them to face the so-called Grey Nurse in pitch darkness below ground.

In Kentucky USA, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium is one of the most haunted hospitals in the world. Its resident phantoms include a small girl who is sometimes seen running up and down the halls of the solarium, a ghostly hearse, a boy playing with a ball, a woman with bleeding wrists and a kitchen patrolled by a spirit dressed in a white coat.

London’s infamous Bethlem Hospital, known popularly as Bedlam, is the location of one of the most famous hospital hauntings, with its so-called Guinea Ghost. The figure is of a woman, clutching a golden guinea, reportedly the spirit of a young lady who was presented the coin by a kindly visitor, was seen many times in the old hospital.

But why do we see ghosts in hospitals? Is there something specific about these buildings which makes them more likely to host spirits? One of the factors, peculiar to hospitals, is that they are occupied day and night. Health concerns have no respect for office hours, so it is very common for people to find themselves in hospitals in the dead of night. They have a kind of peculiar atmosphere, where activity continues, even as the majority of patients are asleep. Perhaps this unusual hinterland between day and night contributes to the unease people feel.

Alongside this atmosphere is the fact that again and again, when we discuss hauntings, the issue of extreme emotional states arises. It often seems that death alone isn’t enough to result in a haunting, it is almost always death accompanied by these heightened states. A visit to a hospital, whether for oneself or a loved one, is rarely a neutral experience. They are often tinged with fear or grief. Perhaps this atmosphere has the dual effect of making hauntings more likely, but also increasing the susceptibility of people to interpreting ambiguous stimuli (a shifting shadow, the creak of a floorboard) as being paranormal in origin.

Another factor, perhaps, is that of standing waves. This is a somewhat disputed phenomenon whereby infrasound is generated in the environment (sometimes by modern fans, or wind from outside) and the wave is reflected back by walls or similar so that it interferes with itself. Infrasound is defined as being sound at too low a frequency for the human ear to detect. This would be below around 20 hertz. The suggestion is that sounds at this frequency can cause a vibrating of the human eyeball and induce feelings of anxiety, panic or dread in people. Because the sound is too low to hear, the origin seems entirely mysterious to the person experiencing it. It is also suggested that these standing waves  might cause hallucinations, especially at the edges of the visual field.

Whatever the reason for people perceiving ghosts in hospitals, there can be no doubt that the experience is widespread. As a ghost tour guide at BATH GHOST TOURS, people will often share their own personal experiences with me. These involve a range of phenomena, and a variety of settings, but as we walk through the dark streets of Bath, having visiting the Hospital and perhaps making our way towards the ghostly atmosphere of the Gravel Walk, again and again people have walked alongside me to tell their stories of hospital ghosts. It seems that many hospitals have particular corridors or rooms that have a reputation amongst the staff of these hospitals. These are often presented as being benign, but unsettling. But hospital staff are pragmatic and it largely seems that these events are treated as just another quirk of the workplace.

I should also add, that with one exception, the now empty Mineral Waters Hospital is the part of BATH GHOST TOURS route where people have had the most striking experiences. Standing there as a group with the old building looming over us, empty as it prepares for redevelopment, more than one person has reported seeing a figure looking out of a window. Rather than the Grey Nurse, what they describe is a small boy. A small boy, dressed in Victorian clothes, looking anxiously out of an upstairs window of the old hospital. Does he wait for someone? Is he frightened? We don’t, as yet, know. But there can be no doubt, that the ghosts associated with hospitals are responsible for some of our most numerous and compelling hauntings.