The beautiful Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women opposite the BFI Imax hides a grizzly past.

At the very top of the building was Ward 5 known as the ‘Sleep or Narcosis Room‘. It was here that for 10 years that vulnerable women patients were drugged into unconsciousness for months at a time and subjected to electro-convulsive therapy – in a discredited brainwashing experiments, all without their consent.

Narcosis Room

Ward 5 was a small windowless room at the very top of the building. lit only by a night lamp on a nurse’s desk. The room contained six beds that were jammed closely together. Patients were drugged with barbiturates to keep them deeply asleep and then given huge doses of anti-depressants. The only noise to be heard was the deep breathing of women in a drug-induced sleep accompanied by the dreadful stench of unwashed bodies. It was impossible to know if it was day or night.

It seems more like a plot from a horror story than a hospital administrating care.

In total, some 500 women suffering from conditions such as postnatal depression and anorexia, passed through the ward. Almost all teenage girls and women in their early 20s were treated as little more than guinea pigs by controversial psychiatrist Dr William Sargant as he conducted a bizarre experiment to ‘repattern’ their brains and cure them of depression.

This discredited mind control brainwashing experiment continued to be conducted on vulnerable women over a ten-year period between 1964 to 1973, without challenge. It is known that at least four women died whilst in their induced comas.

It is important to note that none of the women had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and all this was done to them without their consent. They were never told that this was an experiment and that Dr Sargant and his colleagues were the only proponents of this savage treatment.

No apology – no compensation

Survivors of the Royal Waterloo Hospital have been told by lawyers that the lack of paperwork and the amount of time that has passed makes it unlikely they will ever be compensated.

The whole appalling story is revealed in the following Daily Mail Article

Who was Dr William Sargant?

**William W Sargant, 1948. Wellcome Library reference: PP/WWS/A/19.**

He was an early adopter of ECT and leucotomy, and during World War II treated victims of combat shock with ‘truth drug’ injections, encouraging them to relive their traumas. After the war he discovered the work of Ivan Pavlov and developed his theory of brainwashing and mind control, arguing that in moments of heightened emotional stress an ‘abreaction’ occurs, during which the mind can be reprogrammed.

He himself took amphetamines (speed) throughout his life in an attempt to treat depression – he had earlier in his life had a complete mental break down and this thwarted a career as a Physician.

He believed that the brainwashing techniques he had discovered were ancient and widespread. He observed possession rites in Haiti and Africa and studied the occultist Aleister Crowley. He was on the editorial board of Man, Myth & Magic (encyclopedia) of the supernatural, magic, mythology and religion.

One of his last writings was to provide a witness statement for the defence in the 1975 Kidnap trial of Patti Hearst but was not called to give evidence.

Radio 4: William Sargant – Revealing the Mind Bender General

How did he get away with it?

‘He was an over-powering, imperious figure. He spoke to me as if I must approve and I’m afraid I was too junior and too cowardly to say I thought the whole thing needed properly investigating. – They wouldn’t get away with it now because the law has changed. You have to show there is some logic and rationale to what you are doing. But back then, he would not brook any opposition. He built up an empire filled with his acolytes.’
Professor Malcolm Lader, A leading psychiatric expert, King’s College

Dr Sargant as Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at St Thomas’ was answerable to no one. What was happening in The Sleep Room was an open secret. The St Thomas’ Nightingale Nurses who kept the patients alive, the anaesthetists who conducted ECT sessions and the junior doctors who saw the patients on a daily basis all knew what was going on. It cannot have escaped their attention that this treatment was by any standards unconventional and that none of the patients could possibly have given their informed consent.

The selection of patients was deliberate – young women from troubled families made perfect patients for Sargant’s experiments. He cherry-picked them. They were easy targets — alienated from their families and unable to challenge his authority.’
Frank Tallis, Author of the novel The Sleep Room

CIA, Secret Service & Mind Control

There were also rumours that Dr Sargant was untouchable because he was supported by British intelligence or the CIA. He was interested in brainwashing and so was the CIA. He certainly had links to the military in World War II, working at Porton Down, the Ministry of Defence biological and chemical weapons research base. He was a frequent traveller to the U.S. and wrote in his autobiography of being entertained at the White House during one of his trips.

Dr Sargant retired in 1973 taking all Ward 5’s medical records with him which he later destroyed. It was only on his retirement that St Thomas’ Hospital authorities decided not to continue with deep sleep treatment and Ward 5 was closed. Perhaps it is no coincidence that 1973 was the same year the CIA officially ended its top-secret mind-control experiments, codenamed Project MKUltra.

A copy of his brainwashing title Battle Of The Mind is said to have been found at an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

History of the Building

Dr J. Bunnell Davis founded the institute, first known as the Universal Dispensary for Sick and Indigent Children, in St. Andrew’s Hill. He included the word “universal” in the name to indicate that children from any area would be cared for.

David Laing, also the architect of the Customs House, designed the imposing brick structure on the corner of Waterloo Road and Stamford Street. But the current Lombardic Renaissance-style structure is the result of a rebuild in 1905. This rebuild gave the structure its distinctive Doulton-ware porch and characteristic lettering. One corner turret displays the Royal Arms.

Although the hospital was patronized by royals, it was perpetually underfunded. As a result, treatment was reserved for outpatients by 1851, and part of the building was rented as a school. Not long after, a surgical ward opened and the hospital began receiving women.

After WWII, the hospital became part of the NHS and was joined with St. Thomas’ Hospital Group. From 1948 to about 1973, Dr. William Sargent used it for psychiatric inpatients. He administered many controversial and dangerous treatments, creating the infamous Ward 5, otherwise known as the Narcosis Room. Though government-backed and highly respected at the time, Sargent has since been rightfully discredited.

The hospital closed in 1976. Five years later, it was sold to Schiller International University, serving as their London campus. Schiller moved out in 2011, selling the building to Notre Dame University, based in the U.S. The hospital, including Ward 5, now functions as dormitories for students studying abroad.

The Zombie horror ward at Waterloo Hospital