New New York Hospital

The New New York Hospital was a hospital near to the city of New New York, on planet New Earth, run by the Sisters of Plenitude.

Appearance
The New New York Hospital was clearly identifiable by its white colour scheme, distinctive sail-like shape, and the green crescents on the structure - a universal symbol for hospitals.

Inside the hospital's tall, gleaming complex were wards and areas for surgery, post-op and nano-dentistry. There was also a Pleasure Gardens area which required identification cards to access; it was forbidden to take cuttings from the Gardens. The Tenth Doctor complained of the fact that unlike other hospitals, this particular one didn't have a little shop.

One of the more luxurious wards was Ward 26, where ambient temperatures were kept at fourteen degrees cohezic to promote an atmosphere of healing and well-being.

The secret to the Hospital's astonishing success rate lay in its intensive care unit: a vast, hidden and sterile chamber accessed behind a computer terminal outside Ward 26. In stark contrast to the pristine white of the Hospital's wards, the interior of Intensive Care was dark and industrial, serving only as a breeding farm for human plague carriers, which the Sisters referred to as "the Flesh". Held individually in the thousands of green cells lining the area's walls and gantries, the specially bred "patients" were fed through tubes and subjected to a top-up of bacteria and viruses every ten minutes, as well as a regular blood-wash. When the Flesh were discovered in the year 5,000,000,023, the Hospital was closed down and the Sisters of Plenitude was dissolved by the New New York Police Department.

Down in the Hospital's dilapidated basement at that time lived Lady Cassandra O'Brien and her half-life clone, Chip, who sustained her with various IV drips and medicines stolen from the hospital upstairs. In one corner of the room was a console from which Chip operated Cassandra's metal spiders on the planet's surface, and an antiquated 20th century film projector that showed footage of her glamorous youth. Cassandra also possessed an illegal psychograft machine, built around the doorway of the cellar along with energy restraints that were instrumental in trapping Rose Tyler so she could possess her body. There was also a convex mirror handy, and a maintenance ladder at the back of the dungeon leading up into an abandoned lift shaft. (TV: New Earth)

Staff, technology and patients
Among the Sisters of Plenitude staffing the Hospital were Matron Casp, Sister Jatt, Sister Corvin and Novice Hame. The Sisterhood was devoted to the goddess Santori and their motto was "Hope, harmony, and health", which was broadcast regularly on the building's PA system, along with other announcements. The lifts in the Hospital were voice-activated, and visitors underwent an automatic three-stage disinfection process while traveling between floors.

Patients admitted to the Hospital included the Face of Boe, who was dying of old age; the Duke of Manhattan, who was suffering from Petrifold Regression; an unnamed patient suffering from Hawtrey's Syndrome and a number of new humans being treated for Marconi's Disease and Pallidome Pancrosis. (TV: New Earth)

History
The Sisters of Plenitude who ran the New New York Hospital had taken a lifelong vow to help and heal the sick; however, humanity’s subsequent colonisation of New Earth brought with it so many new illnesses that the Sisterhood could not cope. At first, they experimented with clone meat and bio-cattle in their attempts to find cures, but the slow results eventually led them to resort to growing human flesh. They tried to justify this by saying that the artificial humans had no 'proper' existence.

The Sisterhood’s experiments significantly advanced their medical science, and their charitable institution garnered a reputation for being able to cure anything except old age. In theory, the test-subjects held in Intensive Care were not in any way sentient, but they eventually developed independent thought, speech and vocabulary, becoming aware of what had been done to them and beginning to construct logical arguments. Whenever any of the human experiments showed signs of consciousness, Matron Casp’s standard procedure was to incinerate them in their cells. Sister Corvin theorised in a thesis called “The Echo of Life” that a migration of sentience was bringing about this change, and Casp herself suggested reviewing the hospital’s brain stem policies to prevent it.

In the year 5,000,000,023, twenty-three years after her failed attempt to take the alien guests onboard Platform One hostage for ransom, Cassandra was smuggled inside the hospital by her servant Chip, stowing away with the Face of Boe. She was able to reconstruct her form using a new piece of skin taken from the back of her body, stretched across her rusted frame and reconnected with her brain. Presumably through Chip, or her metal spiders, she learned of the Sisterhood’s secretive methods while hiding in the basement, and devised a plan to remake her fortune and return to human form.

The Tenth Doctor initially came to New Earth of his own volition, but was summoned to the Hospital on his psychic paper by the Face of Boe. In the hospital foyer, the Doctor was separated from Rose when Chip overrode the lift controls; he went upstairs to meet the Face in Ward 26, whilst she was brought downstairs to Cassandra. Using her psychograft, Cassandra took over Rose's body and reunited with the Doctor in Ward 26. The pair’s investigation of the Sisters’ miracle treatments for seemingly incurable diseases eventually led them to the Intensive Care Unit, where they discovered the truth behind the hospital's cure rate.

After Cassandra’s attempts to blackmail the Sisterhood failed, she released a group of the human test-subjects from their cells, who promptly released all the others. They smashed the equipment that had regulated them and began to roam freely throughout the hospital, spreading disease and instantly killing everyone they touched. On orders from Matron Casp, the hospital was sealed off, its lifts quarantined and all incoming shuttles diverted, with no one permitted to leave the premises.

The Doctor ultimately managed to mix together a cocktail of many of the Sisters’ remedies and used the lifts’ disinfection process to spread the cure among the Flesh, creating a new human sub-species. The Hospital was closed down when the New New York Police Department arrived to arrest the surviving Sisters, taking statements from the visitors, while the new life forms were catalogued to be taken into care.