Sydney Hospital

Sydney Hospital, once called the Rum Hospital, is one of the most important hospitals in Sydney, Australia. It sits on Macquarie Street in the middle of the city and is the oldest hospital in the whole country, starting in 1788. Today, it has around 113 beds for patients and about 400 staff members who help take care of people.

The hospital is special because it focuses on helping people with eye problems and hand injuries. People from all over New South Wales come here for these services. It also has a small emergency department with six beds for urgent care.

Since 1909, Sydney Hospital has been a place where doctors learn and study. It works closely with the University of Sydney, especially with its medical school. The hospital is also home to many research groups studying heart health, cancer, and other important medical topics.

Early history

Many people who arrived in Australia on the first ships were very sick. They had diseases like dysentery, smallpox, scurvy, and typhoid. Leaders set up a tent hospital to care for them. Later, a small wooden hospital arrived on another ship.

When Governor Macquarie arrived in 1810, he saw that the tent hospital was not good enough. He chose a spot for a new hospital and built a road called Macquarie Street to reach it. Because the government would not pay for it, he made a deal with some businessmen. They could sell a special drink called rum to help pay for the hospital. The hospital was finished in 1816, but it was built very poorly, with weak wood and stone. Repairs were needed many times over the years.

Alternative uses

The Sydney Hospital was built bigger than Sydney needed at the time. It had a main building and two smaller wings. From the beginning, parts of the hospital were used for things other than medicine.

The northern wing was sometimes used as a courtroom and later as a meeting place for government leaders. The southern wing was used for storing things and later became a place where important government papers were kept. It was even planned to be a place for making money, but those plans changed.

The middle building of the hospital was torn down and rebuilt in 1894.

Lucy Osburn

New South Wales leader Henry Parkes asked for help from Florence Nightingale to improve the Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary. In March 1868, Lucy Osburn arrived as the leader of the infirmary with five trained nurses. She worked hard to clean up the old and messy infirmary. Soon after, they cared for the Duke of Edinburgh, who was hurt by someone trying to harm him at Clontarf, though this happened at Government House, not Sydney Hospital.

Even with praise for caring for the Duke, Lucy and her team faced many challenges. Many people were surprised and uncomfortable with the idea of women working as nurses. Lucy faced opposition from some doctors and criticism in public meetings.

A Royal Commission in 1873 found that the infirmary’s leaders had not done their best and had interfered with the nurses’ work. The commission praised Lucy’s efforts to raise nursing standards. Some of Lucy’s nurses went on to lead other hospitals, helping to spread better nursing practices across the colony. By the time Lucy left for England in 1884, she had helped start modern nursing in New South Wales.

In 1881, the Infirmary was renamed Sydney Hospital. Lucy Osburn passed away in Harrogate in 1891 after living with diabetes. Her successor at Sydney Hospital described her as an outstanding woman who believed nursing was a very important and caring job. Lucy often told new nurses, “You nurses should exist for patients, not they for you.”

The Nightingale Wing

Nurse training in Australia started right here in 1868. Florence Nightingale sent Lucy Osburn and five other nurses from England to help begin this training. In 1869, a special brick and sandstone building called the Nightingale Wing was built. Designed with input from Florence Nightingale, it had a colorful fountain and was made to be a home for the hospital’s female staff.

Restoration

By 1984, the old Rum Hospital building was fully restored. Together with its "twin," the former Mint, it is the oldest building in Macquarie Street and the oldest public building in the City of Sydney. It is said that no other buildings in Sydney have had such a long and important role in the history of the state.

Recent work

The Sydney Eye Hospital began at Millers Points in 1882 and later moved to Woolloomooloo in 1922. It became part of the Sydney Hospital campus in 1996. Recent improvements include building a large car park with an emergency area for eye patients, patient rooms, and an operating room on the top floor. This new construction allowed the removal of the Travers building, which many people thought looked bad, and opened up the campus to The Domain.

A new Clinical Services building was finished in 1995 to match the old architecture and was officially opened on October 30, 1996.