People with memories of the city’s hospitals are invited to come and share their stories at a special ‘life surgery’. This is taking place at the Etruria Industrial Museum, from 12.00 until 4.00 pm on Sunday 8 August 2010, close to the site where the story of the North Staffordshire Infirmary first began.

 The life surgery will give visitors an opportunity to see fascinating photographs and other material that has already been collected for the people’s history project If Wards Could Talk.

Although no trace of it remains, the first Dispensary and House of Recovery stood close to the Caldon Canal at Etruria Locks. It was opened in 1804 and replaced in 1819 by the Etruria Infirmary, the predecessor of the current North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary.