MELBOURNE HOSPITAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 219, 16 September 1935, Page 10

MELBOURNE HOSPITAL.

BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN

BEGINNING IN A CHURCH HALL.

In Melbourne there is a hospital which is staffed and managed by women for women alone. The idea of a hospital where women and children who were unable to afford to pay for private treatment could receive treatment from medical women originated with the first medical women who graduated from the Melbourne University. A commencement was made 37 years ago with a small out-patient department in a church hall which was lent for the purpose.

The growth of the institution from these small dimensions to its magnitude to-day was spoken of by Miss Afolly Mossman, secretary of the Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne, who arrived in Auckland by the Monowai this morning, en route to Suva. Miss Mossman is an associate of the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants and of the Australasian Institute of Secretaries.

"When I was appointed secretary a little, over nine years ago," said Miss Mossman, "the institution had a daily average of Oj in-patients. During the last nine years over £150.000 has been spent on buildings and the hospital now accommodates 140 public patients and 60 intermediate and private patients." The public hospital was etaffed, she said, entirely by medical women, and the committee of management consisted of 24 women and two men who acted as financial advisers.

The. Queen Victoria Hospital is the largest institution of its kind in the British Empire and is, Miss Mossman understood, the second largest in the world. It was the first hospital in Melbourne to provide accommodation for all classes of the communitv. It was main-

tained by a small Government subsidy through donations and by the work o hospital auxiliaries, and by the contri butions of patients, who paid according to their moans.

The latest addition, a new out-patien department and nurses' home, wa

known as the Mabel Brookes wing m recognition of the long and generous services of Mrs. Norman Brookes, C.8.E., who has held the office of president for 12 years. It is hoped that the next 12 months would see the building of a pathological laboratory, which was the last thing to bring the hospital entirely up-to-date.

When questioned about the old-time prejudice against women doctors. Miss Mossman said that little or no feeling on the matter existed now. The numbers iu the out-patients' department spoke for itself, there being an average of 1200 a week. There were 40 women doctors on the staff, including surgeons, and in every way the work was carried out successfully. A feature of the work was maternity eases, 1858 babies being born in the hospital last year.

Miss Mossman was enthusiastic about the team work that existed in the hospital. The managerial staff and the doctors worked in perfect unison. Smooth running was the reason of success for any large institution and there was no doubt that the same reason existed for the success of this large hospital. It is of interest to Aucklandera to know that the matron, Miss E. Simons, was at one time a sister in the hospital in Auckland.-

After visiting Suva Miss Mossman is returning to Australia, via Auckland, at the end of the month.