AS the Mater Hospital celebrates a century of healthcare for the Newcastle community, some of the facility's longest serving employees reflect on their ongoing connection to the people and the place.
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"The Mater has always been my home," Dr Pamela Harrison, OAM, told the Newcastle Herald.
"Even though I went away for a number of years it always felt like I was coming back to where I belong."
Towards the end of 1920 the Sisters of Mercy, Singleton, purchased a vacant two-storey house in Edith Street, Waratah, known as "Enmore Hall" - along with five and a quarter acres of land - for around 2200 pounds.
After substantial remodelling to include an operating theatre and "suitable hospital accommodation", 1921 saw The Mater Misericordiae Hospital became the first Catholic public hospital in Australia, outside Sydney.
Between the time it was purchased and when it was officially opened on March 25, 1922, the Mater had seen 111 patients through with 61 minor operations performed.
In the decade from 1924, the number of patients treated at the Mater rose from 388 to 1160, with the most common surgical procedures being "tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy". The hospital has grown to more than 460,000 outpatient services and 17,000 inpatient services in the 2020-21 financial year.
In 1927, through a 10,000 pound donation from Mr W. Longworth, a children's block was built at the rear of the existing hospital.
Almost a decade later, at a cost of 78,000 pounds, a new Mater hospital - three-storeys with accommodation for 32 private and 60 public patients - was built and officially opened on April 7, 1935.
Aside from some minor extensions, remodelling work and modernisation, this is the Mater Dr Harrison knew when she started as a trainee pathology technician in 1954 at the age of 16.
"When I finished my training in 1958 there were no trained positions so I got a job at Manning River District Hospital before heading overseas for a few years," Dr Harrison told the Herald.
In 1962, Dr Harrison says, she returned to a relief position at the Mater but was worried she would have been forgotten.
"The first person I ran into was a lady who worked in the kitchen," Dr Harrison said.
"She said to me 'Hello Pam. I haven't seen you for a while. Have you been on holiday?'.
"That's just how it was. Everyone knew everyone."
Even though the Mater employs over 1300 now, David Millington said that connection between colleagues hasn't changed.
"It's home here. It's like a second family," Mr Millington said with a tear in his eye.
"That culture is right across all departments at the Mater and that's important because you need to know people have your back."
Mr Millington started at the Mater as a 21-year-old laundry hand in 1978.
In the 44 years since, he has progressed up through the ranks as a cleaner, porter, wardsman, leading hand and deputy manager before landing his current role as support services supervisor.
"So I look after wardsmen, couriers, linen and what they call group three maintenance which is basically the maintenance of things in the hospital," Mr Millington said.
"In 1978 we had a nun in charge. The nuns were strict but they were fair and I remember every year you would get a Christmas present whether it be a packet of hankies or a bath towel. Everyone got one."
Mr Millington - along with both of his daughters - was born "smarter at the Mater".
Described by a few of his colleagues as the "heart of the Mater", Mr Millington reflects on what has made him commit to the hospital for almost half a century.
"When I ask myself why I've been at the Mater for 44 years I think 'Well maybe no one else would have me'," he said.
"But I really think it's because of the culture and the little bit you can do for the patients.
"You know that you are still helping and assisting people even if it's just pushing them around to appointments or organising events. To see them head out the front door healthy is rewarding everyday."
On her return trip to Australia in 1962, Dr Harrison decided being a medical technologist was a "dead-end job" and secured a scholarship studying medicine at Sydney University.
Staying on as relief technician in her holidays, Dr Harrison eventually secured a full-time role as clinical haematologist at the Mater in 1979 - where she remained until 1996.
Perhaps her biggest contribution to healthcare in Newcastle, Dr Harrison was a driving force behind establishing the Mater's palliative care unit in 1983 - at a time when the Mater was making significant developments in their oncology capacity thanks to a great deal of community support.
"When I first started setting it up, palliative care hadn't reached the Hunter at all so no one knew what it was," Dr Harrison said.
"I was given a pamphlet on a seminar that was going to be given on palliative care in August 1983.
"I came home from the seminar on the Sunday and after a meeting with the head of palliative care from the Royal Prince Alfred on Monday I decided that next time a patient told me they would like to go home to die I'd make it happen."
Along with help from Sister Mary Brendan, who had been head of intensive care for 10 years and had just returned from missions in New Guinea, Dr Harrison worked voluntarily outside her full time role as the the hospital's haematologist to establish the new service.
"We had no money, no funding, no plan and I had thought we could use the hospital resources like the social worker," she said.
"It took an hour on the phone until someone agreed for a one-off oxygen tank so. Sister Brendan would get the oxygen tank and would strap it on the back of a suit case trolley.
"There was also no oral morphine in the Hunter at that time so I got the pharmacists to make up morphine as a medicine and we taught people how to grade the pain and give the dose."
Through hard work, ingenuity and a donated station wagon, the service went from 18 patient referrals in 1983 to 92 in 1985.
When sitting next to Mr Millington and Dr Harrison, Kerrie Chapman refers to herself as the "new kid on the block" - having worked at the Mater for 33 years.
Ms Chapman made the move to Newcastle from Quirindi to chase a "long distance romance".
"I was in my late 20s at this stage and I made a promise to myself that I would never let this organisation down," Ms Chapman said.
"They gave a girl from the bush a go sight unseen."
"Passionate" about the role all departments play at the Mater, Ms Chapman says there is a feeling at the hospital that all teams look out for each other.
"There's a culture in this organisation that I'm proud to be part of and it's that culture that keeps us here," she said.
"There's an extraordinary level of kindness in these walls. To our patients and to one another."
Ms Chapman said in her three decades working in payroll, she has seen "heart-warming moments which could only ever happen at the Mater".
"In the last five or six years we have had two particular staff members who were really sick but had used all their sick leave and were going to be without pay for their cancer treatment," she said.
"I've had two staff members come to me and ask to donate their sick leave."
Since the transfer of ownership in 2007 from the Sisters of Mercy to Little Company of Mary Health Care - along with the a name change to Calvary Mater Newcastle - the hospital was redeveloped in 2009 under a public private partnership.
Mr Millington said that while there were significant facility improvements during these years, the new partnership created some division for a period.
"The culture dipped a bit when the private partnership came on and it felt like we had been split in two," Mr Millington said.
"It was a government costing decision to do that so it became a bit of a 'them and us' for a while.
"That has slowly integrated in and it has got back to the culture of the Mater. They have been Mater-ised."
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