Celebrations as Willaura Hospital marks 90th anniversary

Willaura Health Care and East Grampians Health Service celebrated the 90^th anniversary of the Willaura Hospital in September.

More than 100 people attended the celebration, which was marked by a lunch held in the hospital grounds, including EGHS Board members, staff, former staff, patients and Willaura residents.

A large display of photographs and memorabilia, provided by community members, staff and the Willaura Historical Society, attracted great interest, particularly an old bicycle that belonged to beloved Willaura doctor Dr Cyrl Checchi.

Speakers included Willaura Health Care manager Liz Atkinson, Board Chair Cam Evans, former midwife Sue Nicholls and Board Director Sybil Abbott-Burmeister.

Mrs Abbott-Burmeister provided an overview of the long and rich medical history of Willaura.

Willaura’s first medical facilities opened in 1910, with Doctor Sydney Patterson opening the Kelvin Private Hospital in Commercial Street in March 1910, which was later sold to Dr William Osler and then in 1920 to Dr Cyril Checci.

Doctor Checchi had served in England’s medical division during World War One and on his return to Australia at the end of the war, was looking for a practice where he could be his own boss and serve his community.

What he found at Willaura wasn’t what he expected. Conditions were extremely primitive in 1920. There were no lights except kerosene lamps; no water except what was carted into the town; no heating unless he chopped wood for a fire; and no sewerage. And what was grandly called ‘the hospital’ was really a tiny, rented weatherboard house.

Doctor Checchi performed his first operation at Willaura by kerosene lamp in a private home, with only a midwife for assistance.

His initial house calls were made on a bicycle before graduating to a model T Ford for trips of thirty miles or more.

By the 1930s Dr Checchi found the facilities inadequate and the town set about raising funds for a new hospital.

A gymkhana was held in the recreation reserve and raised five hundred pounds. Also, on that day Thomas and Ruth Millear, of Edgarley, donated a thousand pounds and James Millear gave the land which the hospital would be built on Edgarley Road. The architect was Mr Elliot, and the contractor was James Walter, of Warrnambool.

The foundation stone was laid on April 9 by Mrs Millear and building work steadily progressed ahead of the Willaura Bush Nursing Hospital’s grand opening on August 22, 1935.

Doctor Checchi delivered the first baby born at Willaura Bush Nursing Hospital, Ruth Salter on August 28, 1935, just six days after the hospital was officially opened.

After the Bush Nursing Association took control of the hospital, the more modern facilities meant the hospital could undertake more extensive medical procedures and no longer have to move patients out of the district to undergo surgery.

At first Doctor Checchi regularly called in an old classmate, Doctor Bill Hailes, who regularly visited Willaura to perform medical procedures Doctor Checchi didn’t feel capable of completing.

After Doctor Hailes died, Doctor Checchi called on another great friend and famous surgeon, Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop.

Once Weary was called to assist in a fairly urgent matter and true to his great nature, he took it upon himself to hire a plane and flew to Willaura.

The aeroplane taxied up to the hospital, out jumped Weary and into the hospital he went where he promptly set about his work.

In 1959 Doctor Checchi, who was now aged in his sixties, found the medical load too heavy to carry alone and persuaded Doctor Robin Handscombe to come from England to be part of the Willaura community.

The town sewerage eventually came to the hospital in 1967, then in 1976 the largest most modern extensions were opened by Mrs Tamie Fraser, the wife of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, giving the hospital ten beds and equipped with the latest amenities.

Tamie Fraser had her second child, Angela, in the Willaura Hospital in 1959. It had been a long, hot summer, with many bushfires around, and Tamie’s mother insisted her daughter have her baby in Willaura. While Tamie herself wasn’t born in Willaura, her three siblings were.

In 1986, Doctor Checchi, announced his retirement after almost 67 years of country practice. He was 94 years old.

Doctor Handscombe completed his final rounds at the Willaura and District Hospital on April 30, 1991, after thirty-two years of curing the ills of the small community.

Doctor Handscombe’s retirement ended what was a remarkable period in medical practice not just for Willaura, but for the country.

Between them, Doctor Checchi and Doctor Handscombe provided around 90 years of service to the community and in the process, gained the respect and admiration they so richly deserved.

Doctors from Ararat Medical Clinic took over servicing Willaura hospital’s patients and continue to offer their services.

In 1992 a small cottage for the cook was relocated to the nurses’ home that became the day centre offering allied health, district nursing, community nurse, diabetic educator, dietitian and social worker.

The contract for a ten-bed hostel, now Parkland House, was signed in April 1994, and the hospital continues to support the community with its hostel.

In 1995, the Willaura and District Hospital ended its life as a public hospital when it merged under the umbrella of the East Grampians Health Service. EGHS Board Chair Cam Evans and Sybil Abbott-Burmeister both reiterated the Board’s commitment to Willaura Health Care and the upgrade of facilities, with the Board awaiting the announcement of Regional Health Infrastructure Fund funding to commence redevelopment.