A cure for all ills: medicine in Bendigo

Very few Schools of Nursing had
eventuated, so nurses entered the
hospital as raw recruits.’ 35
In the 1940s, local nurses who
served in the Second World War
returned to an acute labour shortage.
The shortage brought about a rethink
of the whole structure and role of
nursing across the State. Numbers
entering the field of nursing were
dropping and those nurses who
married were required to cease
employment. Social changes also
meant women had more freedom
to seek a variety of alternative
employment with more competitive
wages. A debate was emerging at this
time over the discrepancy between
the standard of training received by
nurses in different hospitals.
The Northern District School of
Nursing (NDSN) was established
in Bendigo in 1950 in response to
recommendations from a review
undertaken by the Hospitals and
Charities Commission. The NDSN
was the first independent school in
Australia catering for trainee nurses
from large base hospitals such as
Bendigo and Mildura, as well as
smaller district hospitals in Swan
Hill, Echuca, Castlemaine, Dunolly,
Inglewood and Kyneton.
Joan O’Shea was enrolled in
School One in March 1950 – and
remembers the chaos of the first
school.
I was one of 39 girls and I was
just 17 years old. The building
works were not complete when
we started, so our classrooms
were determined by the amount
of noise being created. We went
to the hostels for bandaging
practice, sat on the piles of bricks
for ‘private study’ and used lecture
rooms where possible … Many
things were incomplete and there
was a shortage of nursing home
accommodation. Local girls like
myself lived at home, country
girls who were to train at Bendigo
Hospital lived at Lansellstowe,
students from country hospitals
lived at Euralla in View Street and
the Wattle Street hostel. This later
changed with all trainees living
behind Lister House. As School
One, we were the guinea pigs …
The hospital girls called us ‘those
know-it-all kids from the school’. 36
Operating from Lister House
in Rowan Street until 1989, over
Northern District School
of Nursing School One
1950
gelatin silver print
Collection Northern
District School of
Nursing Graduates
Association
3,000 students in 108 Schools were
educated to be trained nurses through
the NDSN. 37 Each school provided
a theoretical instruction program
by way of structured study blocks.
Following this, the student nurses
returned to their training hospitals
to work in designated areas to gain
appropriate clinical experience. On
successfully completing three years
of training, students passed out as
graduates of their specific training
hospital. The exceptions to this were
the Pilot Groups who were students
of the School and became Graduates
of the Northern District School of
Nursing. This method of training was
the forerunner to today’s tertiarybased
nurses’ education.
Evolution
The Bendigo goldfields grew at a
rapid pace with thousands descending
upon the region in less than a year
of gold being discovered. In this
context, structures for the provision
of healthcare inevitably evolved in
an ad hoc fashion, developing more
from urgent need and individual
entrepreneurship than systematic
planning. Regulatory bodies
played catch-up, endeavouring to
make sense of a makeshift system
of overlapping disciplines and the
infiltration of quackery. Along with
regulation, many technical, scientific
and educational advancements
have taken place in the 160 years
since healthcare formally began in
Bendigo and early chaos has given
way to a sophisticated system for
the provision of essential services to
the community. Through diligent
campaigning, generous community
support and the hard work of
dedicated health professionals, this
system has expanded to become a
major industry, which includes the
Bendigo Hospital soon to become
one of Australia’s largest regional
hospitals.
Clare Needham
Curator, City History
and CollectioNS
24 25