On 2 February 1911, the Sisters of Mercy opened the first public Mater hospital in South Brisbane.
The two-storey, 40-bed hospital— which opened without fanfare or special celebrations—featured an operating theatre, sanitary block and two wards on each floor.
Mater Public Hospital treated more than 3000 patients in its first three years and found the four ten-bed wards were consistently full. In 1912 the hospital established a formal training school for lay nurses to ensure an adequate supply of nurses with appropriate qualifications. The first 14 lay probationers entered the training school in 1914, with the completion of St Mary’s Nurses Home.
To address the growing number of patients, the hospital was first extended in 1914, just in time to meet the challenge of the First World War, or the Great War as it was called at the time. The hospital was extended again in the 1920s—the original 40 beds were trebled to 120, in which almost 2000 patients were treated each year.
With demands for services ever increasing, the Sisters pushed for government funding to build a new public hospital. In 1981, the new Mater Adult Hospital as we know it today opened its doors.
One hundred years on Mater Adult Hospital cares for more than 100 000 patients each year, providing exceptional service to adults from Queensland and northern New South Wales. Featuring a 24-hour emergency department, intensive and coronary care units, day surgery and oncology units and busy medical, cancer and surgical units, the hospital has become an important part of Queensland’s hospital system.