History

On July 18th 1937, the King George Memorial Bush Nursing Hospital opened to great fanfare on the current site in Main Street Mornington.  The original building affectionately known as ‘The Bush’, housed eight beds in single, two and three bed wards, a nursery and labour room, and an operating theatre.

As part of the Australian Bush Nursing Association, The Bush was a self-funded, not-for-profit hospital, incorporating some of the most innovative hospital design features available at that time.

Born out of The Great Depression, the hospital not only survived the economic hardship of those years, but also rapidly expanded under the enforced regulations of the Second World War.  The hospital grew with Mornington’s booming post-war population explosion, which continued well into the 1970s.

In the same timeframe, on the 17th July 1930, the Hastings Bush Nursing Hospital was established by Dr (Doc) Arthur Haywood of Bittern and a small group of enthusiastic locals.  That facility on the current Cool Store Road site included five patient beds, a staff bedroom and a sitting room.  In 1936, HMAS Cerberus, then known as the Flinders Naval Depot, funded the first operating room.  A full operating theatre complex was opened in 1957 and further accommodation extensions occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.  A new 14 bed nursing home annexe was opened on the site in 1978 and a high dependency residential care facility and the Westernport Hostel followed in later years.

In fact, aged care has always been a priority at The Bays.  On the Mornington side of the Peninsula, our first specialised aged care unit, The Bush Nursing Annexe Nursing Home, opened in 1948.  In 1980, the Andrew Kerr Memorial Children’s Home, on the corner of Tanti Avenue and Barkly Street, was purchased to be developed as an aged care facility.  With the incorporation of the hospital and a change of name to the Mornington Bush Nursing Hospital in 1986, it was decided that the Andrew Kerr Frail and Aged Care Complex should be a separate entity and absolute ownership was transferred to the new complex.

Bush nursing hospitals continued to thrive throughout Victoria, and play a vital role in the delivery of health services, until the 1990s when the political and economic landscape changed.  Health insurance rates plummeted to 28%, small bush nursing hospitals ceased to be viable and closed their doors.

Those changes led the Boards of Management of the Hastings and Mornington Bush Nursing Hospitals to take a critical decision to amalgamate.  From that far reaching decision came “The Bays Hospital Group Inc”.

Indeed, “The Bays” is now the only one of the old bush nursing hospitals still delivering a full range of medical, surgical and obstetric services to its local population.

Our Hastings site is now home to a 75 bed aged care facility offering high level care and low level care accommodation.  The facility also encompasses a purposes built dementia unit.  Our aged care facility is the only facility of its type in Hastings.

Our dialysis unit also operates from the Hastings site.  It provides eight dialysis chairs, operates 6 days a week and now delivers over 3000 dialysis treatments every year.

At Mornington, our acute hospital has 76 inpatient overnight beds including a 4 bed high dependency unit as well as a 14 bed day surgery and five operating theatres.  In the year just passed, the hospital has admitted 8000 patients, performed nearly 7000 surgical procedures and delivered 520 babies.

At Hastings and Mornington sites the hospital employs 400+ staff members.

The hospital’s operations are supported by on-site radiology and pathology practices, and external physiotherapy and pharmacy providers.  Specialists in all of the major surgical specialities operate at the hospital – Urology, Ophthalmology, General, Bariatric & Breast Surgery, Vascular, Gynaecology, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, Orthopaedics and Ear, Nose & Throat.

Other support services provided by way of specialist staff at the hospital include the Diabetes Advisory Service, Dietitian, Stomal Therapy, Wound Management, Breast Cancer Support Group, Lactation Consultations and a Pre Admission Clinic.

In 2013 it is clear that The Bays continues to play a crucial role in meeting the health care needs of the rapidly expanding population on the Peninsula.  The name may have changed, but the vision and ideals remain, we are still owned by our local community and as a not-for-profit charitable organisation rely heavily on that community for support.

The Bays has recently completed a major building program on the Mornington site to equip it to meet local health care needs in the decades ahead.