Mareeba Babies' Hospital (GA2548)

Mareeba Babies' Hospital was established as a government hospital in 1917, under the administration of the Inspector General of Hospitals. It was located on Belmore Terrace, Woodville.

The hospital building was a former Red Cross Society hospital, known as the 'Mareeba Private Hospital'. The Red Cross leased the building from its owner and, in 1916, the building was sold to the government and refurbished as a babies' hospital. It was to be run by the Babies' Hospital Association, who ran a cottage hospital in St Peters, but the Inspector General of Hospitals expressed concern that the Association woule have difficulties administering Mareeba successfully, and felt that the institution would need to be controlled and largely financed by the Government (1). The Babies' Hospital Association was kept on as an advisory committee to the hospital after it was taken over by the State.

The Babies' Hospital Association was closely aligned with the School for Mothers (later the Mothers' and Babies' Health Association) and had suggested that the Adelaide Children's Hospital in North Adelaide open a ward for the treatment of babies in 1913, but the Hospital Board refused. Until the Association opened the hospital in St Peters, babies were cared for in nursing homes by honorary doctors (mostly members of the Babies' Hospital Association) (2).

The hospital opened, under the auspices of the Inspector General of Hospitals, in August 1917. Babies were moved from the old hospital at St Peters to Mareeba in nine loaned motor cars on 1 August (3). The hospital's honorary medical officer was Dr. Helen Mayo, who was also instrumental in developing the Babies' Hospital Association and the School of Mothers.

The hospital catered for patients under the age of two, as other hospitals were not equipped to care for children so young. Although the Adelaide Children's Hospital accepted surgical patients under the age of ten, it did not accept medical patients under two due to worries of cross-infection on the medical wards (4) (5). Prior to the move to the Mareeba building, the 'Register' described the hospital "It is no more a mere institution to help mankind, but it is a national asset, the fairy godmother of the children of to-day, who will be the men and women of to-morrow." (6).

Mareeba Babies' Hospital was pioneering in its approach to infant health. Patients were kept as far away from each other as possible (cots were placed six feet apart) and had their own lockers and equipment. Hospital staff were required to to wear a different gown for each patient they attended and blankets, towels and floors were all sterilized. This was to stop cross-infection between patients, which was a major problem at the time but particularly bad for babies with already weakened immune systems. (7) (8). After leaving the hospital, babies were visited and weighed by nurses from the School for Mothers (9). By 1933, mothers were able to stay at the hospital with their babies in specially furnished rooms, which was described as a valuable asset to the hospital, especially for country mothers, and the rooms were rarely unoccupied (10).

Mareeba was also a training centre for nurses - initially nurses studied part-time at Mareeba for eighteen months and then moved on to other hospitals to complete their full certificate, but the training period was increased to two years in 1932 when Mareeba was proclaimed 'a school of instruction for medical students' (11). In 1951, Mareeba Babies Hospital was leased to the Adelaide Children's Hospital for the after-care of children suffering from polio (12) (13). In 1960, Mareeba became the paediatric section of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It was known as the 'Mareeba Annexe' and was dissolved in 1969 when a children's section was developed in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (14).

Sources:

(1) GRG24/6/322/1914
(2) Helen Mayo, 1936. 'Women's Work for Child Welfare in South Australia', "A Book of South Australia: Women in the First Hundred Years", Adelaide: Rigby Limited., pp. 177 - 178
(3) 'Moving into Mareeba', The Register, 2 August 1917, p. 4
(4) South Australian Medical Women's Society, 1994. "The Hands of a Woman: Stories of South Australian Medical Women and Their Society". Kent Town: Wakefield Press, p. 41
(5) 'The Mareeba Hospital', The Advertiser, 21 December 1916, p. 7
(6) 'Men of To-Morrow. At the Babies' Hospital' (by a Special Reporter), The Register, 5 July 1917, p. 7
(7) Alison Mackinnon, 1986. "The New Women: Adelaide's early women graduates". Netley: Wakefield Press, p. 66
(8) 'The Babies' Hospital. A Visit to Mareeba' (by 'Cousin Kate'), The Mail, 25 August 1917, p. 11
(9) The South Australian Trained Nurses' Centenary Committee, 1938. "Nursing in South Australia: First Hundred Years", 1837-1937, p. 329
(10) "Nursing in South Australia", p. 331
(11) "Nursing in South Australia", p. 331
(12) "Mareeba Babies Hospital Lease Act, 1951"
(13) 'Hospital for Polio After Care', The Advertiser, 7 November 1951, p. 2
(14) Nurses' Memorial Foundation of SA Inc., 1989. "Nursing in South Australia, 1946-1989" (supplement to "Nursing in South Australia: First Hundred years, 1837-1937"), p. 169