Water Famine, pestilence and service to the sick BY LLOYD GORMAN
Main: Sisters of St John of God at their first residence at Adelaide Terrace 1896. Above: Hospital Staff Coolgardie. Photo: Battye Library
Gold fever was not the thing that ran rampant through Western Australia during the gold rush era. Infectious disease was a major problem for the Swan Colony as it became a federated state of the Australian Commonwealth at the turn of the last century. The response by authorities to the problem included some significant input and even sacrifice from Irish people. Gold finds such as that at Coolgardie in 1892 and the discovery by Paddy Hannon in 1893 attracted large numbers of prospectors from around Australia and across the world here in search of fortune. It is estimated that in the ten years between 1890 and 1900 the population of the west quadrupled. Numbers on goldfield spots swelled out of all proportion overnight as prospectors poured into the area, many taken advantage of the new train lines that had recently been completed. Conditions were terrible. Thousands of people were forced to live in overcrowded squalid camps with no running water and very little in the way of water or sanitation. Days were hot, dry and dusty. Diseases such as typhoid spread quickly through contaminated food and water supplies. The situation was little better in Perth where tent cities - effectively shanty towns - sprung up in places like Fremantle and Subiaco. At that time typhoid had a mortality rate of about 20% and could easily claim people who were fit, healthy and strong. Those who caught it experienced rashes, stomach pains, headaches, high fevers and it could lead to internal bleeding and death. An estimated 18,000 people in WA contracted it in the 1890’s, the worst outbreak in
Australian history. At least two thousand deaths were attributed to it, but the real number is widely thought to be much higher. Sufferers also required full time medical attention. Nurses and doctors were in short supply at that time. Bishop of Perth Matthew Gibney - who was born in Killeshandra, Cavan in 1853 - looked to his native country for help. Early in 1895 Bishop Gibney wrote to the Sisters of St John of God and invited them to come to Perth. The order had been founded in Wexford in 1871 and were inspired to nurse those in poverty in the example set by their patron saint, St John of God. On 23 November 1895 the first eight sisters arrived on the RMS Orizaba from Ireland. The youngest was just 21 years old. The eight sisters were: Ellen Dunne - Sr M Cecilia; Bridget O’Brien - Sr M Antonio; Helena Brennan - Sr M Angela; Margaret Kenny - Sr M Magdalene; Veronica Hanlon - Sr M Bridget; Bridget Gleeson - Sr M Ita; Julia Gleeson - Sr M John and Mary Hanley - Sr M Assumpta. “The initial plan was that the Sisters would base themselves in Perth,” a history on the St John of God Health Care website tells us. “When they arrived they set about nursing the sick in their homes, as well as establishing the Adelaide Terrace Convent Hospital. By early 1896 it became clear that the Sisters were needed in the Goldfields. Several sisters went on ‘sick visits’ to tend to particular patients. In late April, Sister Angela and Sister Magdalene travelled to Kalgoorlie to nurse a Mr Vine. They were instructed to leave as soon as he was well again, however they stayed until September, nursing from a tent loaned to them by a miner.
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