Ghostly Banging of Doors

The wards in the hospital were what we called ‘Nightingale’ wards as they were long in shape and beds on both sides. I think most of them had smaller side wards along the corridor. The sister’s office was inside the ward, so all activity of both patients and staff could be seen. The kitchen area was facing the side wards and there was also an entrance to the ‘sluice’ room and patients toilet bathroom areas.

I was working ‘night duty’ for a couple of months and during that time, quite often, footsteps could be heard, commencing from the end of the ward and travelling along it’s length, towards the ward ‘sluice’ toilet doors. These doors were made of a translucent flexible fabric, which had no handles or closures of any kind, to enable nurses to pass through backwards carrying bedpans etc. So these doors, after having passed through, would ‘clap’ closed. On the times when the footsteps were heard, these doors would be heard to ‘clap’, but when watched, they never actually moved. The doors ‘clapped’ at regular intervals all night, not always with the accompanying footsteps.

One night, I spent some time chatting to a restless patient facing these doors in the end bed, and even she spent time listening to these ‘clapping’ doors, but she had never seen them move.

As a nurse on night duty, when I heard the footsteps, I had to make sure that the patients were safe, so I always had to investigate. When I looked in the direction of the footsteps, there was nobody to be seen, and all the patients were accounted for – still in bed, asleep!

Before I worked night duty on this particular ward, I spent many months on days. Of course, the doors were not heard to be ‘clapping’ because of the business of the activities during the daytime. After I had finished my stint on night duty and returned to day duty, I purposely listened and watched this door – and yes, it still ‘clapped’ even when it didn’t move.

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