~ The Museum ~
The Royal Hobart
Hospital Graduate Nurses Museum houses a varied and interesting
collection of artifacts related to nurses and nursing. There is also a
collection of instruments and equipment used by nurses in the daily
management of patients in their care over the past 120 years at the
Royal Hobart Hospital. The museum contains a comprehensive collection of
old books and journals relating to nursing history, and the many and
varied procedures and tasks undertaken by nurses over the past decades.
A small collection of newspaper clippings from the 1940s to the 1980s
provides the reader with snapshots of nursing and health care in
Tasmania over this period. These documents and the museum collection are
a valuable resource for all people interested in social history as
reflected in the changes in the health care system, and the work of
nurses caring for patients at the Royal Hobart Hospital
~ Museum
location, opening hours and admission ~
The museum is at 24
Campbell Street, in the ground floor of the Royal Hobart Hospital
Education Centre, opposite Hobart's well known Theatre Royal.
Opening hours: every
Thursday 11am-3pm,
first Saturday of the month 1-4pm.
Admission is free, but
donations are gratefully accepted and used to maintain the museum.
~ Background ~
Following the
Centenary of nursing celebrations at the Royal Hobart hospital in 1975,
the Graduate Nurses Association was given $1600 towards the
establishment of a museum.
After
much lobbying to the Hospital Board of Management, part of the
lecture room on the ground floor of the Nurses Home was made
available, and permission granted for a display case in the Nurses
Home foyer. The museum was opened and visits were made by
appointment from 1984 until 1992, when the museum was closed for
security reasons.
The Association resumed
lobbying for a new museum site during the development of the 5 year
strategic plan for the hospital. The (then) Chief Executive Officer, Mr Lindsay Pyne and Executive Director of Nursing
Mrs C. J. Turnball supported the proposal and the Museum reopened on its
present site on 2 November 1996.
