WWII military hospital becomes

new home for life skills training

COWRA’s Life Skills Training Service has found a new home in a building originally erected to serve as a military hospital.

The building also saw service as private and intermediate hospital wards and as a day-care centre for disabled and elderly patients from the town and outlying villages.

Right: The entry to the new facility.

In its new role the building has been transformed into a facility that offers several learning and lifestyle programs, including cooking, budgeting, computer skills, arts and crafts plus much more, according to manager, Dianne Graham.

The relocation of the Life Skills Training Service was made possible through a successful submission to become a Life Choices provider by the Cowra Special Needs Service. Clients of the service and carers working together have now created a facility where staff can assist clients to access community activities.

Ms Graham says the facility is open from Monday to Friday for clients who may wish to drop in for a cuppa or a chat.

Left: Dianne Graham cuts the celebratory cake with Dane Hyland and Shelly Barker.

During her opening address Ms Graham said she was thankful to all the Life Skills Training clients who guided the staff into re-organising the facility into what it looks like today. Each corner, wall and space has been created by clients using their ideas andtheir feedback.

To mark the opening, Ms Graham helped Dane Hyland and Shelly Barker cut a cake decorated with the services logo. Mr Hyland then provided the audience with some of his original songs while accompanying himself on guitar.

Right: Dane Hyland entertains with his original music.

Shane Lauritzen also spoke in glowing terms of what the centre will provide for him and the other service clients.

During her opening address Ms Graham said Life Skills Training had inherited a building with a long and rich history. During 1940 a 30-bed military wing was speedily erected by military authorities at the cost of 500 pounds ($1000). The NSW Hospital Commission provided a new boiler, cooking stove and washing machine. Furnishings were donated by the local businessmen and Cowra district residents.

This building was erected to accommodate the military training and Prisoner of War Camps stationed at Cowra during World War II. Heavy taxing came on the Cowra Hospital accommodation at this time. The federal government directed a colonel from the Army’s Eastern Command, an architect and stationed at Parkes, to visit Cowra to discuss the extensions to meet military requirements. This is how the building of the military wing came about.

During 1941, some 560 military patients were treated here. Military surgeons worked here and the X-ray machine was installed in a room on the corner of the veranda, and was accessible only through the children’s ward. Hence young patients were frequently entertained by the spectacle of prisoners of war under guard and soldiers passing through the ward to be X-rayed.

Prisoners of War were nursed here in isolation under guard. The building was also the causality section that attended to the injured brought in during the breakout of the Prisoner of War Camp at Cowra in August 1944.

Left: Dane Hyland, Michelle McAllister and Kylie Taylor sample the tasty delights at the opening.

When the war was over and the military camps closed, the military wing was handed over to Cowra Hospital and provided much-needed accommodation for private and intermediate medical and surgical wards. Matron McBride was in charge at this time. The hospital was a training facility for nurses then, in 1948, Matron Doris Smith took charge. She administered, lectured and taught trainee nurses and attended to daily rounds, until the building’s closure in 1958 when patients were moved to the new Cowra District Hospital – Cowra Health Service as it stands today.

During the building’s operation as Cowra Hospital in the 1940s and 50s, many nurses trained and went on to graduate and become registered nurses. In the late 1950s to 1960 Dr William McLaren and Sister Beth used the current office as a TB clinic and later a blood bank.

The Day Care Centre opened on the July 5 1974. In the beginning the centre catered for eight to 12 people with a staff of Sister Pat McAndrew and part-time wardsman John Eppelston and many helpers from the Red Cross voluntary service.

The daily numbers quickly grew to 20 to 30 people each day. Disabled and elderlypatients came from within the district hospital, the town and outlying villages. Sister June Pengilly joined the permanent staff and nurses were rotated from within the hospital to assist.

Right: Client-inspired decorations in the new facility.

Dr Morgan and his rehabilitation assessment team from Orange visited one day a month, setting up programs for the patients’ rehabilitation to be followed on by staff in-between the team’s visits. The service remained for many years.

The Cowra Day Care Centre was the first and most successful in the Central West and received an achievement award in the hospitals’ accreditation in 1980. It was a state-of-the-art Day Care Centre at the time.