Archbishop of Perth
Matthew Gibney invited eight sisters of St
John of God to Western Australia in 1895 to help people with
typhoid fever during the
1890s gold rush. He provided land for them to set up a hospital in a timber building in Subiaco, which opened on 19 April 1898 with fifteen beds, increased to thirty by 1900. The hospital accepted all patients – private, reduce-fee and free-bed – regardless of denomination, and distributed them throughout the buildings so that sisters were unaware of their status.[3][4]
In 1939, the hospital had the second-largest maternity department in WA after
King Edward Memorial Hospital.[5] Babies born to single mothers were often adopted out, sometimes forcibly.[6] In 2011, the hospital was among many institutions named in submissions to a Federal parliamentary inquiry into
forced adoption in Australia.[7] Files containing details of adoptions are kept at the hospital and some can be accessed by mothers, adoptees and their direct descendants.[8]
St John of God Subiaco Hospital has 578 beds and 20 operating theatres.[12][13] The hospital also has an outpatient clinic, day surgery units and a conference centre,[14] along with a cancer centre named after the
Bendat family.[15]
^Rosser, Debra (2 May 2013).
"St John of God Hospital, Subiaco (1898 - )". Find & Connect. University of Melbourne/Australian Catholic University/Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
^"Submissions received by the Committee [nos.279, 330]". Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices. Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, Parliament of Australia. 2011–2012. Retrieved 12 June 2020.