Hospital Site
Save Mullum Hospital Site for the Community –
Breaking News … Literally ! It has been confirmed that the Department of Health and Property NSW are planning to
DEMOLISH THE MULLUMBIMBY HOSPITAL BUILDINGS IN APRIL THIS YEAR.
Public Meeting as below. ….
The Mullumbimby and surrounding community has loved and fought for this site for over 117 years – since the 1800’s. Around 1900 the site was gazetted for use as a hospital site. It took the community almost 70 years of support and fighting to have the hospital build in the lat 1960’s. And there were more fights with the hospital being closed at one point and community activism and outrage led to it being reopened.
Now it is our turn, Are we to let that site go out of the hands of the community?
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Done for a dollar! Mullumbimby hospital site sold – Echonetdaily
Done for a dollar! Mullumbimby hospital site sold – Echonetdaily
www.echo.net.au
Hazzard's hands are off! It has just been announced that the Mullumbimby hospital site has been offered to the Byron Shire council for $1 by the state government.3 years ago
Done for a dollar! Mullumbimby hospital site sold. – Echonetdaily
Done for a dollar! Mullumbimby hospital site sold. – Echonetdaily
www.echo.net.au
Hazzard's hands are off! It has just been announced that the Mullumbimby hospital site has been offered to the Byron Shire council for $1 by the state government.3 years ago
Timeline PhotosTHE MULLUMBIMBY HOSPITAL SITE SOLD FOR A DOLLAR.
The New South Wales Government has offered the Mullumbimby Hospital site to the Byron Council for the total sum of a dollar.
The offer was made after a successful campaign by the Council, local politicians, and the community.
Byron Mayor, Simon Richardson has thanked Nationals MLC, Ben Franklin for convincing the Health Minister to stop the demolition of the hospital and agreeing to offer the site for sale.
"It doesn't really matter the colour of your flag it's whether it's blowing forward on behalf of your community," said Mayor Richardson.
"So we had the Greens, we had the Nationals and the ALP, and we had community groups, individuals, the council all fighting for the same cause and the result of that is a fantastic success,".
3 years ago
Such good news!!!
Hospital site sold to council for one dollar
www.byronnews.com.au
BYRON Shire Mayor has hailed the sale of the old Mullumbimby Hospital site to Byron Council for just one dollar as a win for the community.3 years ago
Fingers crossed sanity prevails!
MULLUMBIMBY HOSPITAL SITE NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE - NBN News
www.nbnnews.com.au
The future of Mullumbimby's disused hospital site remains the subject of tense negotiations. Byron S3 years ago
Byron Shire Council wants it returned to the community free of charge – a request the state government is still considering.
MULLUMBIMBY HOSPITAL SITE NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE - NBN News
www.nbnnews.com.au
The future of Mullumbimby's disused hospital site remains the subject of tense negotiations. Byron S3 years ago
HOLD THIS DATE - A great line up is coming together for a fun evening for the Hospital Site - Friday May 19, 7pm, $10 on the door
3 years ago
www.echo.net.au/2015/09/mullumbimby-rallies-to-keep-hospital-site-in-community-hands/
There are a lot of people who are working on this campaign, but we have to make sure in our enthusiasm that we don't run over the people who have been working on this for a long long time. Some for over half a century.
Their desire is to not be shoved out of our community because when they reach their twilight years. In this article, MHAG said "A meeting of the action group on August 19 has proposed a campaign to lobby the government to develop the hospital site as a precinct for aged care facilities and services, housing for people with a disability, and affordable social housing for vulnerable and disadvantaged people, including domestic-violence victims."
As re-iterated in my interview with Elaine, the article also discusses the background of community involvement in making the hospital and its associated units available to the public.
"Group member Elaine Robinson said the community had been involved in fundraising for the hospital over many years and the trust had managed the area on Hospital Hill, including the community health buildings and adjoining nursing home site, for more than 100 years .
Mrs Robinson said the hospital’s beginnings could be traced back to 1900 when ‘A Mr Wallace’ owned a portion of the land and ‘deeded it in perpetuity to the town to build a hospital and health services when needed and we have always believed it was our land’.
She said the accident and emergency ward, built in 1988, was supported by tens of thousands of dollars in funding for the building and equipment, raised by local service clubs and the hospital auxiliary.
In 1993, the Susan Jamison Birthing Units facility was built and furnished with a donation of $300,000 from the Jamison family and more than $44,000 raised by the auxiliary.
The birthing unit, Mrs Robinson said, had become ‘a blueprint for the whole northern rivers health care’.""
If anyone of course has information that is concrete about Mr. Wallace, please let us know. So far we have anecdotal information, but no records so far.
Mullumbimby rallies to keep hospital site in community hands – Echonetdaily
www.echo.net.au
NSW health authorities have been accused of an illegal land grab of the Mullumbimby Hospital site which will be vacated early next year once the new Byron Central Hospital is commissioned.3 years ago
www.echo.net.au/2016/06/farewell-mullumbimby-community-birthing-service/
A brief article on the closing of the Suzanne Jamieson Birthing Centre from last year.
Farewell Mullumbimby Community Birthing Service – Echonetdaily
www.echo.net.au
Midwives, mums, dads and bubs assembled for commemorative photos at the Mullumbimby Hospital grounds on Saturday. It was to mark the significant history of the hospital’s birthing unit.3 years ago
Last week, ABC RN did a piece on birthing units and the Suzanne Jamieson Birthing Unit was mentioned as being the gold standard.
The history of giving birth is long in Mullumbimby. Due to the diligence of local ladies, and the bequeathment of Suzanne Jamieson Mullumbimby became one of the best birthing units in the country as mentioned by Prof Lesley Barclay.
In Historical account 'Fetch the Nurse and Call the Doctor, Quick', the seventh chapter, 'Untimely Arrivals', is about the challenges of giving birth in the Brunswick valley and the long dangerous trips the nurses, midwives, and doctors would have to make to help women give birth. Such a far flung story from today.
Biographical details for the interviewee:
Professor Lesley Barclay is an educational leader, health services
researcher and systemsreformer whose projects have improvedmaternal child health services in urban and remote Australia and internationally. Much of her recent research has been rural, remote or Indigenous focussed. Her current position is Professor and Director of
the Centre for Rural Health in Lismore for Sydney University.
Study calls for rethink on closure of small-town maternity wards
www.abc.net.au
At least 200 maternity wards have closed in Australia in the past 10 years. A Sydney University researcher has a solution for providing better care for pregnant women in the bush.3 years ago
Last week, I spent a day at the Historical Society in Mullumbimby as well as speaking at length with Elaine Robinson and Gill Lomath. Susan and Sarah, who help keep the place running and flowing, gave me access to the newspapers in their archives. Along with that, they gave me a small book written by a local called Neta MacKinnon and edited by Robyn Gray. Neta has passed away unfortunately, but her legacy of this book lives on.
A lot of the book discusses things not really relevant to our current battle to save the land and revamp how we use it once we save it, however, she did write a chapter on how and why the hospital came into being.
Until I started doing this research project, I had no idea that nurses and midwives ran the hospital and there were called laying in hospital and usually couldn't take infectious diseases, which left a huge gap in the health of the community. The 1918/9 Spanish Flu Epidemic would've strained this system and many much loved nurses and doctors succumbed to it during these times.
Also these hospitals were private as the concept of universal medicare hadn't been identified by Lester Pearson (Canadian PM of the 1960's) and Australia followed suit in 1984. The hospital system was made mostly public from the 1920's onward. (www.islhd.health.nsw.gov.au/Services/Public_Health/history.asp)
For Mullumbimby, the private hospital called Kurraba was gazetted to be a public institution in 1947. A board of directors that then became the trust was formed and continued until the fateful year of 2010. There of course were a few variations on the governance of the Hospital so this is just a overview.
Neta and Robyn do mention that the land was dedicated to a hospital in 1901, but unfortunately do not state their sources for this information. All they state is that the town planners of the time were far-sighted people.
Sincerely
Adrienne
3 years ago
