Canberra Hospital - History

History

In May 1914 the Canberra Community Hospital, the first hospital for Canberra, was opened in Balmain Crescent, Acton with eight beds. Tents were used to supplement the isolation ward. There were no obstetric facilities and obstetrics patients had to travel to the Queanbeyan hospital.

In 1943 a new hospital was opened on the Acton Peninsula near the Australian National University. Construction of the building was commenced in 1940. In 1942, the United States Army Medical Corps took over construction and commissioned it as an American military hospital. It was a military hospital for only five months. In February 1943, the hospital buildings were handed over to the Canberra Hospital Board for the development of what in time became the Royal Canberra Hospital on Acton Peninsula.

Woden Valley hospital buildings were constructed between 1969 and 1973.

In 1973 the Woden Valley hospital opened and the first patients were admitted.

In 1979 the Canberra Community Hospital was renamed the Royal Canberra Hospital.

Services were transferred to the Woden Hospital when the Royal Canberra Hospital closed on 27 November 1991.

In 1996 Woden Valley Hospital was renamed The Canberra Hospital and the first IVF baby in Canberra Hospital was born, 26/12/96.

On 13 July 1997 the superseded buildings on the Acton peninsular were demolished by implosion, killing a 12 year old girl named Katie Bender who was hit by flying debris.

In 2010, the second operating theatre capable of performing an MRI during brain surgery was commissioned.