The House That Healed

When I saw this photo on Brian’s site,
Bushboy’s World, I knew I wanted to
write something. Here it is. Thanks to
Brian for the use of his wonderful photo.

Glen Innes District Hospital
New South Wales, Australia · 1877–1956

In the autumn of 1877, on a quiet patch of New England Tablelands, a modest building opened its doors to the sick and weary of Glen Innes. Six iron beds lined a single ward, light filtered through plain windows, and the smell of carbolic soap clung to scrubbed pine floors. It was not much, but for the surrounding district, it was everything.

Among those who would call it home was the resident medical officer, a figure whose role was quite literal in those years. He did not simply work at the hospital; he lived in it. His dining table, laid with white lace and gleaming silver, sat in the south wing. On calm evenings, a candelabra threw warm light across the room while the night sounds of the tablelands drifted in through the curtains. On less calm evenings, a knock at the door sent him back to the wards.

He rode out in all weather …. through summer drought and winter sleet …. to reach a land selector’s wife in labor, a stockman crushed beneath a horse, a child burning with typhoid fever.

Over the decades the hospital grew, ward by ward, wing by wing, absorbing the births and fevers, the broken bones and broken hearts of a pioneering community. The dental suite clicked and whirred. Nurses moved briskly through corridors that smelled of ether and eucalyptus. Generations of doctors came and went, each leaving something of themselves in the walls.

By the time the doors finally closed in 1956, nearly eighty years of living had soaked into the timber and stone. What remains today is not ruin, but memory made tangible …. wards preserved exactly as they were, silverware still laid for a supper that never quite ended.

Pull up a seat. The table is always set.

This is “Johnny Lad” by Barry McDonald – Music from the New England Tablelands of New South Wales, 1850-1900