Queen Victoria Women’s Centre

Description

Vision and Values
Vision
The Queen Victoria Womens Centre QVWC is a vibrant place and space known valued and used by women to shape the world they want for themselves and for the women of the future

Values
The values that underpin this vision are

1 Courage and Bravery taking up the challenges not
being addressed by other organisations We draw our
inspiration from the founding women who established
the Queen Victoria Hospital and the women who
fought to save the building and establish the QVWC

Partnership working collaboratively with
likeminded womens organisations and other groups
to make a bigger impact

Diversity developing the Centre as hub for women
across ages and cultures and interests

Effectiveness innovative responses to problems
and the focus of our resources and efforts on key
strategic areas of activity

History

History of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital
The Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital initially called Victoria Hospital was founded in 1896 by Constance Clara and Mary Page Stone Lilian Alexander Amy Castilla Freda Gamble Janet Lindsay Greig Ida Gertrude Halley Jane Greig Bertha Main and Helen Sexton It was one of three hospitals in the world founded managed and run by women for women

Originally the hospital was an outpatients clinic run from the Sunday School building of St Davids Welch Church where Constances husband Egryn Jones was minister on La Trobe St Funding came from a private donation of two pounds roughly 1600 today

The womens clinic was a huge success attracting over 2000 patients in its first three months Women flocked from all over Victoria with many travelling from up country to see a female doctor

It became clear that there was a real need for a dedicated womens health service in Melbourne and a Provisional Committee led by suffragette Annette BearCrawford was created to raise funds so the clinic could expand premises In 1897 the Shilling Fund where every woman in the colony of Victoria was asked to donate one shilling roughly 40 today was launched to coincide with the Silver Jubilee of Queen Victoria

Enough funds were raised for the hospital to buy the old Governess Institute at Mint Place in 1899 The Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital was a huge triumph and a major step forward for womens health and womens rights

Its success meant that expansion was inevitable and in 1946 the hospital moved to Lonsdale St the current site of the QVWC In its first year 2953 babies were born and the staff treated 158 inpatients a major feat considering there were only eight beds and 4000 outpatients many of whom were World War II soldiers

By 1956 the structure of the hospital building was becoming unsound and there was a shortage of female doctors so male resident doctors were employed Then in 1963 the QV Womens Hospital affiliated with the Monash Medical Faculty by then there were only two women on the Board and started taking male patients It then amalgamated with McCulloch House Jessie McPherson Community Hospital to form the Queen Victoria Medical Centre which pioneered In Vitro Fertilisation along with the Royal Womens Hospital

In 1982 the Victorian Government announced plans to relocate the QV Medical Centre to the Monash Medical Centre in Clayton Melbourne demolish all buildings in the Lonsdale St and Swanston St block and sell the land The QV Medical Centre was relocated to Clayton in 1989

Throughout its proud history the Queen Vic Memorial Hospital was a feminist tribute to the spirit and determination of women working together Its relocation was the end of an era in womens history