Hot Spot exhibition about abuse of children with tuberculosis at a sanatorium in the 1950s, about children being subjected to coercion in the form of shackling, confinement and force-feeding. Only 50 years after their stay at the sanatorium are the two main characters able to tell their story. Exhibition period: October 17, 2008 - April 12, 2009

Download the exhibition catalogue here.

Read the article about the sanatorium children from the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association

See also the online exhibition "I didn't tell anyone that I was sick" – an online exhibition about tuberculosis, treatment and the time afterwards

– The Hot Spot exhibition "Bad memories from Grefsen children's sanatorium 1951-54" is medical history and local history in a radically new way. Two brave people choose to share painful childhood memories from the health care system with all of us, says project manager Ellen Lange at the National Medical Museum. She believes that the exhibition is personal, painful and thought-provoking.

50 years of silence are broken

Einar Måseide and Arild Sømo are the main characters of the exhibition. Only now, 50 years after their stay at the sanatorium, are they able to tell their story. They were tuberculosis patients at the Grefsen children's sanatorium in the 1950s. Måseide came there as a 6-year-old and was isolated at the sanatorium for 20 months. Sømo came there when he was 7 and had to stay there for 15 months. Both were subjected to abuse of various kinds - in addition to the fact that they were completely separated from their parents for all these months. Around 10,000 children were subject to tuberculosis treatment. Were these also subjected to abuse?

A powerful reunion with childhood nightmares

On June 4, 2008, Sømo and Måseide returned for the first time to the building where they had been confined in a treatment regime characterized by coercion and iron discipline. The National Medical Museum was involved in documenting the reunion and the building. The film about the encounter with what is today the Sanatorium kindergarten was too powerful to end up in an archive. Instead, the film has become a central document in an extraordinary and important exhibition.

Day Skogheim

Historian and author Dag Skogheim opens the exhibition and briefly talks about culture and unculture in children's sanatoriums. Skogheim has done invaluable work in documenting the history of tuberculosis in Norway. He has, among other things, conducted over two hundred interviews with patients, employees and relatives. He is perhaps best known for the book Sanatorieliv.
The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology is collecting material
The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology is seeking personal accounts from anyone who has experience from sanatoriums in Norway.

The National Medical Museum has published an exhibition catalogue for the exhibition Bad Memories, in which several sanatorium children tell their stories.

Download the exhibition catalog for Bad Memories here.

Background information: Children in sanatoriums in Norway

There were about 40 children at Grefsen Children's Sanatorium at any one time. The average length of stay was about a year. During the sanatorium's entire operating period from 1909 to 1970, there were a total of about 2,600 children. The sanatorium era was from the 1850s to around 1960.

In the early 1950s, there were 15 sanatoriums that primarily treated children in Norway. In addition to protecting society from the risk of infection, they were also supposed to provide treatment. Those who were considered incurable were transferred to tuberculosis homes, an institution that, according to Skogheim, was a waiting room for death. All sanatorium patients feared the news of being transferred to such a home. In 1951, there were several such homes in each county and around 80 in total in Norway.

There were two purely children's sanatoriums in Norway in 1951 (Grefsen in Oslo and Åsebråten in Østfold). In addition, there were four coastal hospitals in Stavern, Hagavik, Tromsø and Vadsø where a large proportion of the patients were children. The most common practice was that child patients were together with adult patients, but clearly separated in their own wards without contact between them.

Dag Skogheim is an author and historian and one of our foremost experts on the history of tuberculosis. He will talk about cures and isolation as a method of treatment and about the culture and unculture that arose in such institutions. He himself had tuberculosis and spent many years in a sanatorium. His efforts to document the history of tuberculosis in Norway are unparalleled. He has collected pictures, stories and conducted many hundreds of interviews. His best known book is Sanatorieliv (2002), which was honored with the Sverre Steen Prize that same year.

Skogheim is now, together with the project group, in the process of collecting material about sanatoriums in Norway - before it is too late. This applies to patients, relatives, nurses and support staff. A large sanatorium was an enterprise with many employees and patients. Their stories can contribute to a greater understanding of this important part of our history.

Project group:
Ellen Lange (project manager)
Henrik Treimo
Frode Weium
Marie Ørstedholm
Dag Andreassen

Through systematic collection of material, Dag Skogheim has been able to contribute significantly to the work on the exhibition.

Hot Spot
Bad Memories at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology is a small exhibition, but an important document for understanding this important part of Norwegian history. Hot Spot is defined as a temporary exhibition where messages and perspectives are sharpened, where current social problems are put on the agenda and new voices are allowed to emerge. The goal is to make archives, libraries and museums more visible and relevant. (Source: ABM-u)