Corroboree Weekly Bulletin of 115 (Heidelberg) Military Hospital (21 August 1943)
This is a bulletin from the 115 Heidelberg Hospital located in Melbourne.
During World War I, Prime Minister WM “Billy” Hughes made a promise to Australia’s service personnel that, “When you come back we will look after you”. The result was the ambitious Australian Soldiers’ Repatriation Act 1917. Repatriation was an attempt to address the complex and varied needs of returned service personnel by providing war pensions, healthcare, education and training, employment, housing, soldier settlement, and remembrance and commemoration. The Heidelberg Military Hospital: The Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital serves as an example of the healthcare provided to those impacted by conflict both during and after World War II.
The 115th (Heidelberg) Military Hospital was built on a site of over 50 acres for the Army and opened in March 1941. Rather than erecting a temporary military hospital, it was decided that a greater investment would be made in a permanent building to serve as a repatriation facility following the war’s end. Architects Leighton Irwin & Co, who specialised in hospital design, were commissioned to undertake the project, which was designed in a functionalist Modernist style.
The high demand for treatment of those returning from the conflict meant that an interim pavilion hospital was also erected on site while the permanent brick building was constructed. Once completed, both the interim and permanent hospitals included operating theatres, kitchens, living quarters, wards, and a mortuary. By 1942, the campus was expanded to also include two lodger units, the No. 2 Facio-Maxillary and Plastic Surgery Unit, and the No. 6 RAAF Hospital.
The role of the campus was to provide acute medical care for both men and women enlisted in war service. Here patients were treated for serious injuries, disease, and infections, as well as the emotional and psychological impact of war. Heidelberg served as a training hospital, and its care and management of war injuries and trauma was recognised to be among the most advanced in the country.
However, this was not the image of the hospital that was conveyed to the general public. The realities of armed combat were often deliberately concealed from the public eye so as to not deter volunteer recruitment. As a result, the early work on penicillin and plastic surgery undertaken at the hospital received little coverage, and the projected image of the patient population was often that of men who needed a short recovery before rejoining their units.
One complete Newspaper in Fair Condition.
