Dedication & Discipline

In 1860, Florence Nightingale introduced a militarised nurse training scheme in England and by 1868 it had spread to Australia. In 1892 people flocked to the Swan River Colony (later Western Australia) in search of gold. The lack of clean water and sanitation, together with dirt, dust and flies, were a breeding environment for typhoid and tuberculosis. It was these conditions and the population explosion, that was the impetus for early nurse training in Western Australia. In 1899, a schedule of study and a register of trained nurses was established. In 1900, Kalgoolie and Coolgardie government hospitals were accredited as training hospitals. Trained nurses from Melbourne and Adelaide were recruited in order to establish hospital standards along British lines. Coolgardie became a Sanatorium, but was considered an unsuitable climate with insufficient beds to treat cases of tuberculosis Western Australia. In 1915, a new Sanatorium was constructed, on the outskirts of Perth where trainees underwent preliminary training, prior to being transferred to a country hospital. The medical department used the trainees to bolster the shortage of nurses in these hospitals despite not having the required number of beds to be accredited as training hospitals. As a result, training was extended to four years instead of the required three. With the advent of specialist diagnostic tools and advances in treatments, the number of people with the disease declined. Wooroloo closed its doors to trainees and a Central Training School was established in 1947. It was formally recognised as the Government School of Nursing in 1955. The school amalgamated with Royal Perth Hospital and a new curriculum implemented in 1975. At the same time student nurses moved from the apprenticeship system of training to nurse education at the Western Australia Institute of Technology (later Curtin University), where the first degree for nursing in Australia was implemented.