091322 140 year history - A4 landscape v1 digital - Flipbook - Page 78
1941
Nursery, King George V Memorial
Hospital for Mothers and Babies
While Sister tends to a baby, the nurse
is perhaps waiting for the rush. For
much of its history Royal Prince Alfred
did not have an obstetrics department.
Sydney seemed to be already well served
with Crown Street and Royal Women’s
Hospitals. But it was finally agreed that
a university teaching hospital with no
obstetrics ward was an anomaly. In 1941
the King George V Memorial Hospital for
Mothers and Babies opened. It was fully
occupied from the beginning and the
post-war baby boom soon led to so
much overcrowding that beds were
placed in corridors.
Image from the Max Dupain Collection, State Library of NSW
1947
Signalling system, King George V Memorial Hospital for Mothers and Babies
These mothers have nursing attention at their fingertips. King George V Hospital was considered
very modern and had many innovations. One of these was a communication system that allowed
a patient to press a bedside button and light up to two signals, one over her door and another on
the panel at the sister’s station. There was also a two-way speaker system between patient and
nurse. In those times mothers stayed in bed eight to ten days after the delivery of their baby and
nurses attended to their comfort and hygiene.
Image from the State Library of NSW
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