Gilbert Bain comes up Top Trumps in latest game

The Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick is featuring in the latest edition of the Top Trumps card game.

“Britain at its Best”, which has been released in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, includes 30 hospitals from all around the UK.

The oldest in the country (Barts – 1123) gets a card, as does the newest (Nightingale, London – 2020) and St Thomas’ (where Boris Johnson was treated).

The four scoring categories are “Year Opened”; “No. of beds”; “Fame” and “Rainbow Rating”. The Gilbert Bain is rated 1961, 76, one and two in each of the four.

The Top Trumps file reads: “As Britain’s most remote hospital, you’ll find Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick on the Shetland Islands, Scotland. The hospital provides emergency and medical care to the islands’ 23,000 residents. It started out as a small cottage hospital funded by businessman Gilbert Bain. The hospital has approximately 140 births per year.”

Highest in the “Rainbow Rating” section is Great Ormond Street Hospital, which has a rainbow theme throughout.

But arguably the most crucial hospital is a moving one, not a permanent structure or even semi-permanent as in the case of the Nightingale. That is “The Ambulance” (which features on its very own card).