The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated througout the empire in 1897. In Tasmania a public meeting was held to determine how the occasion might be marked. The second wife of the governor of Tasmania, Georgina Jane Connellan, Lady Gormanston suggested that a maternity hospital would be a great addition. At the time the only assistance to pregnant women came from untrained and unregulated midwives. It was agreed and a committee of women manage the new facility that opened on 195 St John Street in September 1897. The Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital moved in 1935 and it was not absorbed into the General Hospital until 1993 as the Queen Victoria Maternity Unit.[1]
Today
The statewide Cardiothoracic and major Paediatric surgery service is provided at the Royal Hobart Hospital.
The hospital has been allocated $50 million in the 2022–2023 budget as part of a 10-year, $580 million redevelopment plan.[2]
In January 2023, it was revealed that the hospital helipad, currently located in Ockerby Gardens, no longer meets the Civil Aviation Safety Authority requirements for medical transport after changes published in December 2018 and initially due to come into effect in December 2021.[3] Patients will be flown to Launceston Airport instead before being transported by road in an ambulance ride which is expected to take about 10 minutes.[2] Vice-president of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association, Annette Barratt, expressed concern at the stress that the need to transport patients from the airport would place on Ambulance Tasmania.[3]
In February 2023, Tasmanian premier Jeremy Rockliff announced that a new emergency helipad will be built on the top of the existing car park on Cleveland street.[4]
