On tour with Art On the Move, throughout regional Western Australia in 2023/24
40 Babies a Year Born Here
The legacy of John Flynn has touched our town in many ways, starting with the completion of the Lake Grace Nursing Home in 1926. This building has been preserved by the community and is now known as the Lake Grace Australian Inland Mission Hospital Museum (AIM). It was the dream of Flynn “to see that hospital and nursing facilities are provided within a hundred miles of every spot in Australia where women and children reside.”
In the 26 years the AIM was in operation nearly 1000 of our locals were born in this little hospital. By 1937 around 40 babies per year were being born here and in 1938 a new maternity wing was built to cope with the overcrowding.
Maternity patients were brought in early because of the distances and transport difficulties. (E Bishop nee Ness –former nursing sister).
We compare that to now. No babies are born in Lake Grace. If they are, there is much consternation as to why. Our babies are born in Narrogin, an hour and a half journey by car. If they come too early now the Royal Flying Doctor flies them out to Perth, a long three and a half hour drive for expectant fathers. On any one of these planes now could be a little premmie baby being helped by the “Mantle of Safety” over our landscape.
