Kuwahara osteopath academy hospital

 

January 2014....When spending time in Sapporo, some good Japanese mates and myself decided to venture out together. It was a public holiday and we arrived at this long abandoned Osteopathic Hospital just before noon after a semi long drive from Sapporro.   

 

The three of us climbed a small mound of compacted snow and snuck in through a broken window one by one, being careful not to move or break anything with our feet as we entered.  

 

After years of freezing cold Hokkaido winters combined with heayy snow falls, the interior of the hospital had become damp and weather beaten with water covering most of the floor (due to melted snow trickling down through the roof top).  Once we'd reached drier ground in the main hall we all wandered off in our own directions.  The first room I entered was an almost pitch black, macabre operating theatre.  I used my torch to get a better look and noted a torturous looking rusted bed in the middle of the room (very SAW). Moving down the hall I found a doctors consulting room with patients files, keys, pills, medicine bottles and other medical instruments.  I noted that the medicine dated back about 10 years so I figured that the hospital had closed its doors maybe around 2000/2002.  I took a few snaps and checked out a few things in some of the back rooms, then moved to the reception area.  Everything was covered in dust and cob webs and the small office looked as if the receptionist had just upped and walked out, leaving everything in its original place.  Files, pamphlets, pens, paper and clip boards still sat on desks behind the receptions glass window.

 

I could hear my mates moving around upstairs so decided to climb a rotted stair well up to the second floor.  The paint was peeling off the walls and a dank mouldy smell hung thickly in the air.  The first ward I entered was another operating theatre....but, unlike the other one I'd spotted earlier, this one still had all of its equipment.  I've explored many abandoned hospitals in my time but had never seen an operating theatre still completely in tact (so I took a few hundred photos).  Had this been anywhere else in the world, almost everything in this room would have been theived and slapped onto ebay the day after the hospital closed - so I was kind of chuffed that it'd been left 'as is'.  On the floor I spotted a rusted amputation saw amongst some other surgical instruments and the early afternoon light provided the perfect illumination.  Rusty brown water trails ran down the tiles which added a macabre beauty to the interior.

 

I moved on to another waiting area and checked out a doctors office (everything still in its place).  Cigarette butts remained in ash trys and dated magazines still sat on the table.  I found a shiny fibreglass vending machine that stood out amongst all the decay surrounding it.  I also found heaps of magazines tied up in bundles strewn all over the damp floor on the third level.  

 

The building itself felt kind of unstable, especially on the top floor and we could hear creaks and cracks in the floor as we stepped cautiously down the halls. We took a few fun photos of each other and decided it was time to move on to our next location.