Health Ministry

• Sisters of Charity Health Services
• Complementary Medicine
• Ministry to those dependent on alcohol and drugs
• Ministry to those living with HIV/AIDS

Sisters of Charity Health Services

With the closure of the female penitentiary at Parramatta and the sale of their convent to the recently-arrived Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity sought permanent accommodation in Sydney. In 1896, Tarmons was purchased at Potts Point, the former home of Sir Charles Nicholson, the first vice-chancellor of Sydney University. It was in this building that St Vincent's Hospital was established with the treatment of its first outpatient on August 25, 1857. During the remainder of 1857, eighty-one patients were treated, and Dr Robertson, a Protestant, became the first medical superintendent. The only prerequisites for admission were sickness and poverty; it was open to people of all creeds and cultures.

In May 1859, a controversy flared up that threatened to ruin the fundamental ideals of the hospital. Mother Baptist de Lacy, one of the five pioneer sisters, was criticised by the Catholic chaplain for allowing provision of so-called 'protestant' Bibles for the use of patients. This minor incident grew into a public sectarian controversy such that, although she received enormous support from the laity of all creeds, de Lacy felt that she had no course but to return to the Congregation in Ireland. In the exchange of views in The Freemans Journal and Sydney Morning Herald , it is clear that she had strong support. The SMH editorial praised her dedicated, unpaid, social welfare work, and welcomed the ecumenical policy of the Sisters in their care of the sick in a hospital where need not creed was the criterion for admission and care.

Weathering the crisis of 1859, St Vincent's Hospital progressed under the management of Sister Veronica O'Brien and the support of Dr Frederick Milford. On land at Darlinghurst granted by Governor Fitzroy in 1855, a larger St Vincent's Hospital was gradually built. In 1868, Archbishop Polding laid the foundation stone of the new building in which Mother de Lacy's hopes and dreams could continue to be fulfilled by the sisters who succeeded her.

In 1858, with the beginning of their second fifty years, the sisters saw a great flourishing of their health ministry. Nine of the hospitals still under their administration today had their beginnings in the years 1888-1938. St Vincent's Hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne established clinical schools, recognition of their being of the highest standards. A registered nurses' training school was commenced at St Vincent's Sydney in 1891 and in Melbourne in 1903.

Mother Berchmans Daly, the second Australian Superior General succeeded Mother Francis McGuigan in 1920. Noted as the builder of hospitals and the friend of the poor, she soon won the respect and gratitude of all. As well as her talents in building and administration, she organised daily meals for two hundred people at the convent in Melbourne. The memory of this great builder of Catholic hospitals is perpetuated in the Berchmans Daly Wing of St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. In the Entrance Hall a bronze bust commemorates her as Foundress of the Hospital in 1893 and of the Clinical School in 1910. It bears the inscription: "She hath opened her hand to the needy and stretched out her hand to the poor" (Prov.31:20). A great co-worker is commemorated in the Gertrude Healy Wing of St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. Nurses who trained at St Vincent's, Sydney, where Mother Gertrude Healy was Rectress too, also spoke of her with awe and respectful affection.

The Sisters of Charity were in demand in other parts of Australia to establish efficient, caring hospitals. St Vincent's Private Hospital was added to the complex of St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney in 1909, and from 1920-38 hospitals were established in Toowoomba, Lismore, Bathurst, Cootamundra, East Melbourne (St. Vincent's Maternity Hospital) and Kew (Caritas Christi Hospice) - a hospice for the terminally ill, situated next door to "Raheen" and so enjoying the special interest of Archbishop Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne, who frequently said Mass for the Sisters and encouraged their work. His mere presence at the Annual Hospice Fete attracted many generous supporters.

At the time of their first centenary in 1959, the Sisters of Charity had founded sixteen hospitals since the humble beginnings at Tarmons . In the Government rationalisation of the available hospital and medical care, the hospitals run by the Sisters of Charity have on the whole been expanded rather than phased out.

In the 1960s and 1970s, St Vincent's in Sydney and Melbourne have kept pace with the developments in modern medicine and assumed leadership in medical research. Commonwealth and State grants enabled St Vincent's Sydney to open a Thoracic Block providing specialist treatment for heart, chest and tropical diseases, in 1962 the Caritas Centre for the treatment of mental health and, in 1963, the Garvan Institute for Medical Research. In 1973, the long-awaited Medical Centre was opened adjacent to the General Hospital. In 1977, thanks to a huge bequest by Mr Edmund Resch, a new St Vincent's Private Hospital was opened. A link with the past was the Chapel built on the same site as the former Sacred Heart Presbytery where Mother Xavier Cunningham had nursed Archbishop Polding in his last illness.

Meanwhile, at St Vincent's Melbourne, significant new developments included the Berchmans-Daly Wing and the Mary Aikenhead Nurses' Home. The new Private Hospital replaced the old Mt St Evin's and the De Paul Community Health Centre was opened.

In these years too, St Vincent's Hospitals at Lismore, Bathurst, Toowoomba and Launceston and St Joseph's Auburn, carried out major building extensions. Here, as well as in the major hospitals, home nursing services were established, thus continuing the tradition of visiting the sick and poor in their own homes.

An important development has been the initiative in setting up Pastoral Care departments as essential components of each hospital. In the word of the original founder of the CPE training program at SVH Sydney,

"Pastoral care is a ministry of presence through which we witness to the healing power of Jesus Christ by meeting the immediate psychological needs and ultimate spiritual concerns of others through a loving and caring relationship. It is establishing a personal and loving bond between the other person and ourselves to enhance or affirm their love, their needs, their illness, their fears, their loss. It is a holistic or team approach on the part of the entire community to listen to, affirm and actualise the whole being of the other person."

Recent developments