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1212 Tennant Creek Hospital

Description

During the twentieth century Tennant Creek, situated on the Stuart Highway 510 kms north of Alice Springs and 670 kms south of Katherine, grew to be the only substantial town in the Barkly Tablelands. Surrounding Tennant Creek, the Barkly is an expanse of 240,000 square kms between the tropical Top End and the arid Red Centre. It consists largely of open grass plains with scattered cattle stations, mines and Indigenous communities.

By the 1930s the lack of medical facilities in the Tennant Creek township, a problem amplified by a booming mining industry in the region, had come to the attention of the government. The construction of a nurse's quarters and small hospital was authorised in 1934, and building materials for a prefabricated and steel clad Sidney Williams hut were despatched from Canberra. It was soon realised that the building was not large enough to suit its purpose, and the construction of a larger T-shaped complex was carried out. In September 1935 Dr Rupert Catalano was appointed as the first doctor.

There were several challenges arising during these early development stages. First, the administration of the hospital building plan was shared between the Department of the Interior in Canberra, the Deputy Administrator in Alice Springs, and the Administrator and Chief Medical Officer in Darwin, creating a complexity of responsibilities that were inclined to inhibit decisions. Further, recruitment of qualified and experienced medical practitioners proved to be an ongoing difficulty.

In 1941, the submission of a proposal to the Commonwealth Department of Health by the Chief Medical Officer Dr Kirkland led to the addition of services to Tennant Creek Hospital. This included an outpatients department designed by Commonwealth Department of Interior, Works and Services Branch architect, BCG Burnett. This building remained in hospital use until 1978, when as a result of protests against a planned demolition it became instead the headquarters of the Tennant Creek Branch of the National Trust and was used to house the organisation's historical collections.

At the start of the twenty-first century, Tennant Creek, with a population of about 3,500 people, remained the only major town in the Barkly Tablelands. Tennant Creek Hospital was by this time a twenty-bed hospital with the principal purpose to assess, diagnose and treat short-term illnesses and injuries under the governing strategic plan entitled Building Healthier Communities. Among its services was an eight chair renal unit, which provided a dialysis service to the Barkly region.

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