Abandoned Kansai

I’ve seen more than my share of amazing abandoned infirmaries over the years, from the beautifully old-style *Tokushima Countryside Clinic* to the surprisingly modern *Wakayama Hospital*. And while four more spectacular hospitals are waiting to be written about, I would like to introduce you to the Trust Hospital today. Why? Because it was more than just a hospital…

When I arrived at the Trust Hospital with my friends Kyoko and Dan on a sunny spring afternoon, I was very disappointed… at first. The building we saw was more or less a gutted, vandalized shell full of graffiti. At the entrance there were some wooden shelves, some frames still had doors and halfway through the building we found a boiler room, but most of the dilapidated construction was empty – my initial reaction was “The only reason I am taking photos here is because I was told it once was a hospital – and who doesn’t like abandoned hospitals?”. Trying to get a feel for whatever this once had been I took a look around without taking photos. At this point it could as well have been a hotel or something completely different like a conference center for all I knew, as there were no hints that this really had been a hospital at one point in time. The front part of the two-storey building was a spacious, rather solid concrete building with some water damage here and there; interior, doors, windows and even most internal walls long gone. Separated by metal doors another part of the building started – the floors reinforced by Euro-pallets, doors and other makeshift methods. This part looked more like a youth hostel, with narrow hallways and rather small room facing northeast, surrounded by an overgrown park. The structure as a whole didn’t make much sense – the back area was too big to house family as overnight guests of patients in treatment, the rooms were too inaccessible and not properly equipped… and the front area could have been anything. At the same time the elevator in the middle of the building was too massive for a conference center or a hotel, and it was in the solid concrete area. And then it dawned on me! The Trust Hospital had been more than just a hospital… it had been a hospital and a retirement / nursing home! The front part was the hospital part. Big, wide, massive – for heavy machines and wide sickbeds. The back with it’s now crumbling wooden floors was used as a retirement home, a perfect addition for delicate elderly as medical help was just a call across the hallway away. Why the Euro-pallets? Because kids used the building to practice their non-existing graffiti skills and to play some airsoft.
Overall the Trust Hospital turned out to be a rushed, but quite interesting exploration – as soon as the expectations went down from above average to close to zero. The setting sun created an interesting atmosphere, warm orange light against dark corners and a really eerie atmosphere, especially in the colder and darker back. The slow realization that the Trust Hospital most likely had been more than just a hospital just added to this unique experience, even though I wasn’t able to find facts about this unusual location even after visiting it. Surely not a spectacular exploration, but memorable in its own ways.

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