- Image by Pieter Musterd via Flickr
The new City General hospital in Derby has an old problem – a ghost. The hospital, which is about to be renamed the Royal Hospital, is built on the site of the original City General. Staff have reported a black-clad figure in a cloak roaming the wards.
The Sun has been told that there have been dozens of sightings of the apparition in recent weeks.
“Several have seen a male figure cloaked from had to toe in black darting between rooms and through walls – especially in departments near the morgue.
“It’s affected morale so much that bosses decided they had to act.”
Debbie Butler, a senior manger at the hospital, admitted that an exorcist has been called to the £334,000,000 hospital. She told staff, “I’ve spoken to the Trust’s chaplain and she is going to arrange for someone from the cathedral to exorcise the department.”
The Catholic Church does still offer exorcisms but only as a last resort. Each exorcism requires approval from a bishop.
A popular theory as to the identify of the ghost is that it may be the spirit of an angry Roman solider. When the original hospital was built in 1920 it was built covering one part of an ancient Roman Roads despite protests.
A less well known theory is the connection of the Derby cemetery. Both the City General and the cemetery are on Uttoxeter Road. In 2003 safey inspectors discovered that many of the headstones where unstable and laid some of the smaller ones flat. The cemetery was later completely sealed off to the public.
Amazingly, machines were used to pump foam underground in the cometary in an attempt to stabilise it. It has been suggested that this foam has been responsible for the irritation or erosion of tombs below the ground and this as awoken a restless spirit.
In Pure Spirit
What do you think? Has the hospital done the right thing by calling in an exoricst? If this is the ghost of a Roman Solider why has he started to appear now?
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