Ipswich Mental Hospital (1938-1964)
In 1938, the Asylum was renamed the Ipswich Mental Hospital. The previous year Dr Basil Stafford (Superintendent at Ipswich), had been chosen to be the Australian representative at a conference in Paris on mental hygiene and he also spent some time in America and Britain observing asylums there.
Stafford felt that the old custodial policy was out of date and was an advocate of more modern drug therapy. He also wanted a better classification of patients in the asylums.The culmination of his report was the introduction in parliament of The Mental Hygiene Act of 1938.
This attempted to address the stigma attached to mental illness by changing words such as “lunatic”, “insane” and “asylum”, to “mentally sick”, “mental illness” and “mental hospital”. This allowed for voluntary admission to mental hospitals and the powers of the Public Curator to be written in modern language.1
The Backward Person’s Act of 1938 was introduced at the same time. This was designed to address the education and care of mentally deficient people. Stafford had become superintendent at Goodna and shortly afterwards, Director of Mental Hygiene. His place at Ipswich was taken by Dr William Parker, who was to serve from 1938 to 1953.
With the outbreak of World War 2, the military took over the Asylum’s hospital and this only added to the overcrowding. Ipswich still had a large percentage of chronically ill patients but was taking on many new mentally deficient patients. Many of the staff left to join the war effort and this resulted in staff shortages. The shortage of nursing staff continued after the war and this was alleviated to some extent by employing young ex-servicemen who could help with the heavier chores.
At this point in time, the Asylum was still segregated into male and female, so this represented a departure from this rule. By the 1950’s, ninety patients in Female 1 were attended by just four nurses and one male assistant. However, the nursing staff seemed fairly dedicated, and later, when staffing levels were increased, the close relationship between staff and patients decreased, with less skilful staff being employed who did not have the interests of the patients at heart.2
It seems that from the 1950’s onwards, farm work was declining as was work in the laundry by the patients and with the construction of the Occupational Therapy buildings, indoor pursuits such as canework began to take their place. Around this time, some form of school work was introduced for the children.
With the opening of the new female ward in 1960 (Ellen & Francis House), Female Wards 2 & 3 became empty and at the request of the State Government, it became accommodation for wayward girls. Known as Karrala House, it came under the jurisdiction of the State Children’s Department, not the Asylum. This was not found to be a very satisfactory arrangement, and Karrala House became notoriously unpopular. It closed in 1968, but did little to improve the reputation of Sandy Gallop in the minds of the public.
In 1962 the Mental Hygiene Act was replaced by the Mental Health Act and it contained provision for mental hospitals to be called special hospitals and thus in 1964, the Ipswich Mental Hospital once again changed its name to the Ipswich Special Hospital.
1. Patrick, R. (1987). A History of Health and Medicine in Queensland, 1824-1960. St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, p.131
2. McRobert, E. (1997). Challinor Centre : the End of the Line : a History of the Institution also Known as Sandy Gallop. Brisbane, Qld: Dept. of Families, Youth & Community Care, p.70