There Is A Defunct Hospital in Cincinnati Called Besthesda

"There is a pool in Jerusalem called Bethesda. There gathered
crowds of sick people, blind, lame and paralyzed. John 5:2"
Written on a mural at Bethesda Oak Hospital.

Where I work is kind of freaky in a Stephen King, Sixth Sense, The Shining kind of way.

My office is located in the old Bethesda Oak Hospital, right off 71 at the Taft Road exit. But there is no actual hospital there anymore, not in the "healing" sense anyway. It's confusing because everything about it still looks like a hospital, right down to the white cross on the top of the tower announcing to travelers on 71 north that people can, or at least did, find comfort there.

Where admissions used to be there are now Tri-Health office workers, shuffling papers rather admitting patients or helping sick people.

Old surgery rooms are now simulation rooms for Children's Hospital surgeons. And it's completely bizarre walking past them because there are dummies lying on surgery beds hooked up to IVs, machines, etc. There is even fake blood during the simulations. (I felt my own blood drain out of my body the first time I walked past not knowing it was a "simulation" room, and saw a sheet covering up everything but a dummy's feet. The lights were off inside the room, and it flashed through my mind that a patient from god knows when had been abandoned there during a failed surgery.)

Tri-Health closed Bethesda Oak as a hospital around 2000, and slowly but surely Children's has been taking it over and using it as space for various departments. (Tri-Health's corporate offices are still there.)

My office is located in a former OB/GYN physicians office, and I can't help but wonder how many expectant moms passed through there, rubbing their bellies in anticipation. (How do we know it was a former OB/GYN office? Because my colleague Steve found the old schematic, complete with the locations of exam tables with stirrups.)

When my colleagues and I go to get water and ice we walk to what is now just a bunch of cubicles in little suites, but countless babies were born in those suites. It's the old labor and delivery wing of the hospital, now stuffed with computers and cubes and non-baby delivering Children's employees. (At least hopefully they're not delivering babies in there because there aren't any doctors around.) When I walk past I can't help but flash back to what that ward must have looked like 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Sometimes on my way in to work I'll enter through the old emergency room, imagining what sorts of pained faces once sat there anxious for help. Broken bones. Bloody wounds. Wrenching pain.

My imagination runs wild in that place.

The strangest thing is imagining what it would be like if you didn't know it wasn't a hospital anymore. What if you were driving down the highway with an emergency and pulled in to the old ER, only to find an abandoned hospital, just filled with office cubicles and baffled employees, wondering what you're doing bleeding on their floor.

The whole idea of it has the makings of a great piece of surreal fiction. Then again, I find it all pretty surreal now.

I'm moving buildings next week and am super excited to be moving into Children's brand spankin' new research building, but I have to admit, I'll miss this weird place. (Fyi: Many of the photos have notes in them, so hover and you can read the details.)

Also, just to be clear, Bethesda Oak has never been Children's hospital. Children's is located about a mile away, just a block or so from University Hospital.