Healing the Wounds of War

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A History of the Greenslopes Hospital The story of the Greenslopes hospital is a slice of Australian national history in the 20th century. Since it was opened in the darkest days of World War Two, the hospital has provided a special quality of care and convalescence for the serving and discharged military personnel. Its first patients were servicemen from battlefronts in the Pacific, Europe, and North Africa and the Middle East.

In 1946, the hospital had 900 staff and cared for up to 1,120 patients. Among those returning were men disfigured by the brutality and deprivations of Japanese POW and slave labour camps. The staff at Greenslopes helped to rekindle the faint sparks of life left in their bodies.

Here, many ‘Diggers’ who served in the legendary World War One battles of Gallipoli, France, and the Holy Land came for treatment in their latter years and spent their final days.

Through Asian conflicts in Malaya, Korea, Vietnam, the Greenslopes hospital continued to expand the range of facilities and services to care for those who, literally, risked life and limb for their country.

Now a private hospital, Greenslopes continues to provide care to veteran service Australian men and women.

In this short history to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the hospital, Dr Chris Strakosch and Dr Carolyn de Wytt, tell how ‘Greenslopes’, as it is most commonly known to veterans, came to be and how it expanded to meet the demands of the day. The authors both work at Greenslopes and are keen military medicine historians.