Greenvale was the first purpose-built Government sanatorium in Victoria. There were slightly earlier sanatoria at Macedon and Echuca, but they received only a small amount of government funding.
Greenvale Sanatorium when it opened consisted of seven canvas walled timber huts (or “framed tents”) containing five beds each. There were also weatherboard buildings containing a kitchen, dining room, surgery and staff accommodation. Two 18 bed weatherboard wards (for male and female patients respectively) were added in Dec. 1906, making a total of 70 beds. In 1907 there were 19 staff: the doctor, matron, staff nurse, six assistant nurses, wardsmaid, kitchenmaid, two housemaids, two cooks, driver, engine driver and two porters.
Tuberculosis was the cause of one death in nine in Victoria in 1902. The only treatment until the 1950s was rest and fresh air, with isolation to prevent the spread of the disease. Hence the then remote location and the well ventilated buildings. The altitude (500 ft above sea level) was also considered significant. The lack of water supply was a recognized problem with the site.
Greenvale Sanatorium was for early stage patients. The administration did not want to waste beds on sick people, so patients were discharged after one month if they showed no improvement. For 1906 and 1907 the average length of stay was 74 days. On discharge 61% of patients were assessed as “disease arrested, or condition much improved”, while 14% were classed as incurable. Almost nobody died at the sanatorium in these years, but at least a quarter of patients “subsequently heard of” had died.
The Sanatorium was primarily for “patients in reduced circumstances”. Preference was given to “those living in condition under which improvement is impossible or in dwellings in which their presence is dangerous to the other inmates (sic)”. Those in a position to pay fees were directed elsewhere, although patients were expected to contribute what they could afford.
Life in the Sanatorium was according to a strict schedule. There was “a bell for rising, a bell for meals, a bell for walking, a bell for resting and a bell for retiring to bed at night”. Many activities were forbidden as being too strenuous. Some example of the rules:
Patients shall not visit or loiter about the tents of other pationts. The congregating of patients is conducive to over-excitement, excessive talking, or laughing, all of which is injurious to damaged lungs.
Singing is forbidden, as are also dancing, and the playing of wind instruments.
Only unexciting literature is allowed in the Sanatorium, and any papers or books obtained by patients must be passed by a responsible officer.
On the other hand, patients who were able were encouraged to walk slowly to the top of the hill, where there was a shelter. By 1913 they could also assist with vegetable gardening, bee-keeping and looking after poultry. All of which one would think would be a bigger strain than reading a book, no matter how exciting!
Between 1906 and 1908 half the grounds were planted with ornamental trees and shrubs supplied by the state nursery and the Botanical Gardens. A row of pine trees was planted for shade on the northern and western sides of the site, many of which remain.
The number of patient beds had been increased to 90 by 1910, by constructing two additional huts and increasing the number of beds in each hut from 5 to 6.
From 1924 or 1925 only female patients were admitted to Greenvale, with male patients being accommodated at Amhurst Sanatorium, south of Maryborough, which was opened in Dec. 1908 and had originally taken only female patients. There seems to have been a radical change in management at Greenvale. A journalist wrote in 1925:
The superintendent is not a believer in too many rules and too much discipline, which accounts for the homelike feeling which prevails. The girls can pick up wood, gather stones, and make little outside fire places to boil a billy on and have a sort of picnic tea. This all conduces towards taking away the feeling of that bugbear, an institution…
At Greenvale the smell is of fresh air, of the wattles, and the gums; nothing less like an institution can be imagined.
The Sugar Gum plantation, intended to provide firewood, was planted between 1939 and 1947. See the page about the plantation for other tree species that make up the plantation.
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