Ghoul has gone AWOL

As RPH prepares to celebrate 150 years mystery surrounds the disappearance of its most reclusive inhabitant....

Royal Perth Hospital RPH celebrates its 150th anniversary this week, but no one knows if its most enigmatic 'resident' will be looking on. A ghost that has reputedly haunted the hospitals museum for years has apparently discharged herself.

Curator, Jan Bryant said there had been no sightings, or evidence, of the ghost - described as a woman in grey dress, a white apron and a cap - since renovations to the buildings were completed last year.

Mrs Bryant, who has been the museum's curator for 15 years, said the ghost had sometimes been seen walking up and down an old staircase in the historic M Block Building.
Other unexplained phenomena have occured. Ms Bryant said a photograph of an old doctor was regularly knocked over mysteriously and a heavy surgical chair had 'moved' several feet between her leaving the museum after work one night and arriving back the next day.
'Many people thing the old resident medcal officer's sitting room in haunted" she said Visitors claimed there was a definite presence in the room.
Mrs Bryant said she did not have a strong belief in the supernatural but the strange occurences raised questions.
However, she said she had never feard the ghost - and staff had come to accept spooky stories as part of the museum's folklore.
"We always greet, and farewll, the ghost when we begin and finish our working day" she said.

The hospital admitted its first patient on July 14th 1855

Published in the Guardian Express July 12th 2005