Ghosts, Raves and Satanic Rituals: A Visit to One of Mexico's Most Notorious Abandoned Hospitals Jose Luis Martínez Limon - VICE
go to original December 15, 2016

In a city protected by extraterrestrials, it's curious that the strangest local legends are based on these ruins. To the northeast of Tampico, driving for about five minutes up the Luis Donaldo Colosio urban corridor, a small gap on the right side of the road acts as an entrance to one of the most mysterious buildings in the city: the Juan Álvarez Díaz Rehabilitation Center, known locally as the Hospital Naturista. Built by and for the Union of Oil Workers of the Mexican Republic, the former hospital represents Tampico's recent history in a nutshell.



At the main entrance of this three-story corpse is an enormous concrete trade union plaque, which has been there since 1984. During the union's short period of activity, the rooms of the Hospital Naturista were dedicated to nutrition and eye problems, but also offered rehabilitation services such as magnetotherapy and hydromassage to any union member. According to journalist Marco Antonio Flores, in its time the hospital boasted "the most advanced technology in all of Latin America." However, five years after opening its doors, the hospital closed abruptly in 1989. That same year saw the arrest of Joaquín Hernández Galicia – known as la Quina (quinine) – the then Secretary-General of the trade union.



But the rapid end to the hospital's operation was barely the beginning of its story. From 1989 until 1994 – when it was finally completely abandoned – a private security team was put in charge of looking after the place. It was in these years that the supernatural legend of the building was born. Like so many abandoned hospitals, its corridors are said to be primarily haunted by the ghost of a deranged nurse – in this case, the ghost is La planchada (which in Spanish means 'smartly-dressed woman').



As the story goes, while the rehabilitation center was still in operation, it employed a very stylish nurse, who fell in love with a young doctor. The doctor broke her heart, and the heartbreak made La planchada (which also means "sad woman") treat her patients cruelly – to the point that she somehow became responsible for the death of a nine-year old. To avenge the death of his child, the father allegedly cut the nurse's throat with a scalpel. Although many maintain to have seen the ghost, skeptics argue that this story is unlikely to be true because terminal patients were never treated and high-risk operations were never carried out in Hospital Naturista.

Situated 200 meters from the sea, Naturista boasts the remains of two swimming pools (one outdoor pool and one indoor pool that looks like it could be a jacuzzi), rooms with balconies and sea-views, palm trees and a terrace with scenery that not even the French impressionists could have imagined. If it weren't for the three floors of darkness and its remote location, this would be an ideal place to hang out and chat on a November afternoon. Or, to party.

Which is exactly what the youth of Tampico thought in the 1990s and, excited rather than anxious about the La planchada legend, they frequently used the venue as a place for raves. Although during this period, stories from ravers who swore they had seen apparitions reinforced the ghostly myth, it wasn't until real horror struck that the hospital took on a malevolent character in the minds of locals.

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