Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women's Hospitals

ELSIE INGLIS and the SCOTTISH WOMEN’S HOSPITALS 39 LEGACY The Scottish Women’s Hospitals continued serving the war effort in France until 1919, tending to the wounded from the last great advances on the Western Front. When the Scottish Women’s Hospitals were disbanded, it was decided that remaining funds should be used to provide a memorial to Elsie. This resulted in the building of the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh, which opened in July 1925 with 20 beds. The bed complement quickly increased and by the time of the hospital’s closure in 1988 it had reached 82. Yet perhaps the greatest achievement of Elsie and her 1,500 colleagues is that they had proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that women were as competent as men.