Macquarie Hospital
From Faculty of Medicine Online Museum and Archive
The Macquarie Hospital, formerly known as North Ryde Psychiatric Centre, is situated on forty hectares of land in Cox’s Road, North Ryde, and is under the control of the Department of Health. Building on the site began in 1956 and the first patients were accepted in January 1959. The first Medical Superintendent was W. Barclay and the current Medical Superintendent is J. A. Thompson.
The Hospital was originally designed to provide special facilities to deal with particular problems that other psychiatric hospitals were not equipped to handle. With the development of regionalization of psychiatric services within the metropolitan area, other psychiatric hospitals opened their own admission centres and Macquarie Hospital became responsible for the care and treatment of those patients living in the Northern Metropolitan Region of Sydney. The Hospital’s function has evolved progressively especially as a result of the expansion of acute psychiatric services in general hospitals.
Macquarie Hospital now comprises wards specializing in an acute admission service, rehabilitation, emotionally disturbed children, intellectually handicapped children, psychogeriatric and medical and surgical patients. The bed capacity is 384 with the majority of patients returning to the community. Further expansion of rehabilitation and psychogeriatric services is expected.
In 1969, the Hospital formalized its association with the University of Sydney, becoming a teaching hospital in Psychiatry. A Sub-Professorial Unit of forty beds (Ward 12) was opened and, adjacent to this are the University offices. On its completion, Ward 12 provided an admission and assessment service for the lower north shore; the Sub-Professorial Unit was initially responsible for inpatient care in Ward 12 as well as for teaching of graduate staff and undergraduates. Its involvement in direct patient care is now finished and it concentrates on teaching and liaison with the various Departments within the Hospital regarding student clinical work and teaching.
The Sub-Professorial Unit staff comprises R. J. Schureck, Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, M. McGrath, part-time Clinical Supervisor and two secretarial staff. The University has appointed four Clinical Tutors from the Hospital’s staff, namely G. Pohlen, R. Kaneyson, W. Barclay and P. Doherty. Schureck has been with the Sub-Professorial Unit since its inception.
Medical students are rotated to the Hospital four times a year, spending four weeks there, and combine their rotation to Macquarie Hospital with another rotation either to the Royal North Shore Hospital or the Hornsby and Kuringai Hospital. Most of their clinical work is carried out in two admission wards, with additional visits and tutorials in other aspects of psychiatric care given throughout the Hospital.
A library, separate from the Hospital’s, has been developed and is being expanded.
Source: P.J. Doherty, "Sydney University Medical Society" in Young J, Sefton A and Webb N, Centenary Book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine. Sydney University Press, Sydney