A hospital in Meghalaya, where ATM inventor John Adrian Shepherd-Barron was born in 1925, has got an automated teller machine after 53 years of the first installation of such cash dispenser globally, an official of the health facility said on Tuesday. The ATM was installed at Dr H Gordon Roberts Hospital, which will turn 100 next year, he said.
"The teller machine was installed on August 7 after a petition was submitted to State Bank of India for setting up an ATM on the premises before the centennial celebrations of our facility next year," Medical Superintendent of the hospital Dr Roken Nongrum told PTI. The access to an ATM in the facility will help patient parties and staffers immensely, he said. “We are grateful to the bank authorities for considering our request. The ATM is special as the inventor of automated teller machine was born in this hospital 96 years ago," Nongrum said.
Shepherd-Barron came up with the concept of a self-service cash dispenser in 1965 and his "eureka" moment was inspired by a machine dispensing chocolate bars. The first ATM was installed at a bank in London in 1967. Reg Varney, one of the stars of a popular TV show became the first person to withdraw cash. Shepherd-Barron, India-born Scot, died at a hospital in Scotland in 2010.