This article was first published in The Border and Beyond – Camooweal 1884-1984 by Mrs Ada Miller (nee Freckleton).
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It is reproduced here with the consent of Mrs Miller.
There was of course no hospital or medial officer in those earlier years although a Dr Blamey was recorded as being present at the birth of Ellen Frances Cronin on 17 December 1885 and a Mrs Gotch was the midwife.
In the 1890s up to mid-1920 Mrs Conroy (later Mrs McMahon) acted as a bush nurse, dentist, mobile midwife for the whole district travelling by buggy, sleeping out on the ground in the open, taking her own younger children if necessary to Riversleigh Station, Carlton Hills and Alroy Downs Station, delivering babies and managing sick households.
Even after a hospital was opened and doctors were appointed, the midwives assisted and records show a Mrs McDermott and Mrs Dawson also active as local midwives.
Berri Berri, pneumonia, fever, gastro-enteritis, whooping cough and allied childhood complaints were treated by these skilled women, especially by Mrs Conroy/McMahon.
Wounds were lanced and stitched with no anaesthetics, bones set, teeth pulled and advice dispensed.
Manager of Rocklands Station, Mr A H Glissan, whose father, a doctor, had given him some elementary knowledge also was a great help in the district in the years prior to medical assistance.
Quinine, laudanum, senna leaves, castor oil, magnesia, chlorodyne, Condys crystals, Epsom salts were all bought off the grocers’ shelves.
The first hospital was the Post and Telegraph Station from Yelvertoft Station removed to Camooweal and rebuilt by A E Brown for 225 Pounds.
Camooweal boasted its first doctor, a Dr Fisher, about 1912.
She boarded at the Cosmopolitan Hotel and married an A Moray who was the engineer at Barkly and Alexandria Station.
A Red Cross van toured from Mount Isa to the Northern Territory during the time that Dr Orchard was resident doctor at Camooweal (mid 1930s).
As well, matrons, nursing sisters and nurses staffed the hospital together with wards men and domestic staff.
Nurses Bennett and Burr were employed in 1911.
Nurses Miler, Byers, Mathers and Nichols were there at later dates and each married in this district.
Nurse Miller, later at Mount Isa Hospital, married a Mount Isa policeman who later became Inspector of Police – Gordon W Mouatt, after service over a wide area of Queensland.
Nurse Byers married Alistair McVean.
Nurse Mathers married John Staunton.
Nurse Nicols became the wife of Joe Patch, the Manager of Lake Nash Station and some of their family were born at Camooweal.
Some of the matrons who have been responsible for the district’s health were Matrons Tarney, Sloane, Win Lloyd, Glenillian, Black, Faulkner, McKenzie, Martin, Barefield, Hutchinson, Lawrence, Dalton, Webb, Stanfield, Cleary, Cecily Steptoe and Knight.
The Cottage Hospital which was transferred and built by the local committees was eventually taken over by the Mount Isa Hospital Board in 1946 and much of that splendid equipment so carefully gathered was transferred to Mount Isa amid local cries of protest from Matron Barefield.
About this time, residents of Camooweal contributed a shilling a week to a local scheme for hospital insurance.
The Cottage Hospital was accidentally burned down in 1959 and replaced by a splendid building and Quarters which were opened by Dr Noble, Minister for Health in 1963.
The staff in 1984 consisted of Matron A Roberson and her husband, an ambulance bearer.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service visits weekly for out-patients clinics and serious cases are transferred to Mount Isa by ambulance.
In the event of death, very few burials are made at the Camooweal cemetery due to the high cost of transporting back the remains.
Dr Mabel G S Neylan, nee Mabel Crutchfield, was born 30 November 1882 at Mirboo, Victoria and died 23December 1929 at Brisbane.
She was educated at Camberwell, Victoria and she attended the University of Melbourne were she completed her Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1906 the year she was appointed to the Cottage Hospital at Boulia in North West Queensland.
In Boulia she met and married Thomas Neylan, line repairer and in late 1909-10 they moved to Urandangie where Thomas Neylan was telegraph officer and post master.
The Neylan family moved to Camooweal about 1915 where Dr Neylan practised at the Cottage Hospital until about 1920.
During her residency Dr Neylan delivered 25 children and passed as medically fit numerous young men 21 to 35 years of age who were called up for home defence or who enlisted in World War 1.
She was one of the many females among Camooweal’s early doctors.
It is interesting to note that the health of the community has largely been attended to by females and it has been wonderful to find so many qualified female doctors.
Researched by Kim-Maree Burton.
www.kimmareeburton.com
First published in The Border and Beyond – Camooweal 1984-1994.
Photographs courtesy of Mrs Ada Miller.
This history column is a weekly column on the history of Mount isa and the North West in the Saturday edition of The North West Star. It can also be read in the community section of the North West Star website www.northweststar.com.au