Updated September 24, 2021 13.5K votes 3.1K voters 181.7K views
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Vote up the spookiest haunted hospitals from around the world.
The history of psychiatric hospitals throughout the world is pretty bleak. Patients were often admitted for minor reasons and then spent the rest of their lives inside the hospital walls. During the early days of mental health care, electroshock therapy and lobotomies were common practice and usually done without anesthetic.
It's no surprise, then, that - much like the terrifying haunted asylums around the world - so many of the creepy abandoned hospitals around the world are now hotspots for paranormal activity. One hospital took such bad care of its patients that a woman went missing inside only to be found dead in the basement 42 days later.
Read on for more chilling stories about the world's most terrifying haunted hospitals.
St. Bartholomew's is the oldest hospital in London, dating back to 1123. It's still operational today.
Inside, there is an elevator known as the "coffin lift," which sometimes takes passengers to the basement all on its own. Once down there, the lights go out, and the elevator won't move. The passenger is usually forced to pull open the gated doors and walk back upstairs, and, the entire time, there is the sensation that the elevator is following up each level. It's usually waiting on the main floor, doors open and lights on, when the passenger arrives.
Rumor has it that the ghost of a nurse who was murdered by a deranged patient in the basement is having a little fun with her fellow nurses.
Kuhn Memorial Hospital was opened in 1830 in response to a smallpox outbreak. It later tended to Civil War soldiers and lost several staff members during the Yellow Fever outbreak in 1878. The hospital remained open until 1989.
It was boarded up by the 1990s, but several paranormal investigation teams have made it inside. There have been reports of full body apparitions and shadow figures creeping through the halls.
In 2015, a team of paranormal investigators discovered the dead body of a missing woman inside Kuhn. She appeared to have been murdered.
Poveglia Island, where the soil is equal parts dirt and human remains, has a long history with death and dying in Italy. During the bubonic plague in the 14th century, the infected were shipped to the small island between Venice and Lido to live out the rest of their miserable days. From that time on, any time a mass infection came around, the dead and half-dead alike were dumped there to smolder in mass graves. And, if that's not enough, a mental hospital was erected on the island in the 1920s.
Now, the island is plagued by angry, restless ghosts, including that of a doctor who - by suicide or murder - fell to his death from the bell tower. Italians avoid the island, well, like the plague.
Operating from 1854 to 1975, the Taunton State Hospital was originally known as the State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton.
While it was open, Taunton was home to some pretty well-known criminals. Jane Toppan was a nurse who was sent there after experimenting on her patients with morphine and atropine. She would send them to the brink of death with one injection and back to life with another, until she got tired of it and finally killed her victim. Lizzie Borden also spent some time inside the walls of Taunton.
During the 1920s, residents reported witnessing a group of doctors bringing patients down into the basement. Those patients were never seen again.
Pennhurst State School and Hospital was built in 1908 as a state school for the physically and mentally disabled. It was enormous and housed more than 10,000 students at a time.
The facility quickly gained a bad reputation after several residents came forward with reports of neglect and abuse. The building was shut down in 1986, and everything in it was left behind, including medical equipment and patients' belongings.
Paranormal activity has been reported from the abandoned hospital, including voices, strange footsteps, and items being hurled across the room. Take a peek inside with the Ghost Finders investigative team to see for yourself.
Rumors of mysterious deaths and a sudden closure in the 1990s make Gonjiam Hospital one of South Korea's most haunted locations.
Legend has it that patients and staff would suddenly die and be found later in their beds or at their desks. It's possible that a doctor on staff was mentally ill, and he was the one responsible for all of the deaths.
Whatever the reason for the closure, there's no doubt that some bad energy was left behind. People who visit often run screaming from the building after seeing shadows, hearing moans, and feeling the scratch of invisible fingernails on their skin.
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