Corporate Body
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (1882 - )
- From
- 25 September 1882
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Functions
- Hospitals or Clinics
- Alternative Names
- RPA (Acronym)
- Website
- https://www.slhd.nsw.gov.au/rpa/
Summary
The hospital was funded by a public subscription and originally designed as a memorial to Prince Alfred's survival of an 1868 assassination attempt made against him in Sydney, Australia. The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) opened in 1882 and has become a major teaching hospital and healthcare provider.
Details
After the death of a patient at Sydney Hospital believed to be because of a lack of nursing care (the patient was described by some sources as "filthy and covered in vermin") in 1866 and consistent pressure from doctors beginning in 1857, Sir Henry Parkes and surgeon Alfred Roberts wrote to Florence Nightingale requesting help and advice on reforming hospitals in the colony of New South Wales.
In addition to the Nightingale approach to the physical design of the hospital building, the Royal Prince Alfred also employed formerly trained nurses marking a shift from untrained lay-women acting as nurses.
The University of Sydney also played a substantial role in establishing the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and continues to have a close relationship with the hospital today.
Related entries
Archival resources
Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales
- Florence Nightingale - Correspondence, 1867-1908, 1867 - 1908, MLMSS 1262; Nightingale, Florence (1820 - 1910); Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
- Rosa Angela Kirkcaldie - Records; Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Details
State Records of South Australia
Published resources
Books
- Baker, Barry, Australia's First Anaesthetic Department: 75 Years at the RPA (Camperdown, N.S.W.: Jobson Foundation, 2005), 172 pp. Details
- Hassal, John, RPA & Beyond: an Unauthorised Memoir (Willoughby, N.S.W.: Phillip Mathews Book Publishers, 2010), 169 pp. Details
Book Sections
- Lewis, Milton, 'Doctors, Midwives, Puerpal Infection and the Problem of Maternal Mortality in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Sydney' in Occasional Papers on Medical History Australia, Harold Attwood; Frank Forster and Bryan Gandevia, eds (Parkville: Medical History Society, A.M.A. [Victoria Branch] and Medical History Unit, University of Melbourne, 1984), pp. 85-108. Details
Conference Papers
- Willetts, Georgina, 'From Nightingale nurses to a modern profession: the journey of nursing in Australia', in The 13th Henry Parkes Oration (Sir Henry Parkes Memorial School of Arts, Tenterfield, New South Wales: The Henry Parkes Foundation, 2015)., https://parkesfoundation.org.au/activities/2015-oration/. Details
Edited Books
- Doherty, Muriel Knox and Russell, R. Lynette eds, The Life and Times of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia (Sydney: New South Wales College of Nursing, 1996), 352 pp. Details
Journal Articles
- Gye, Richard, 'The hospital and the Medical School: one hundred years of association', RPA Magazine, 81 (1983), 11-14. Details
- Mulvey, Margaret, 'History of Women in Medicine', RPA Magazine, 80 (1982), 30-33. Details
- White, Richard T., 'Royal Prince Alfred Hospital as the birthplace of general hospital psychiatry in New South Wales', Health and History, 24 (1) (2022), 65-85. https://doi.org/10.1353/hah.2022.0003. Details
Resource Sections
- 'RPA History', in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Museum and Archives, 3 March 2014, https://www.slhd.nsw.gov.au/rpa/museum/history.html. Details
- Child, Donald, 'Royal Prince Alfred Hospital', in Sydney Medical School Online Museum and Archive, The University of Sydney, 2008, https://sydney.edu.au/medicine/museum/mwmuseum/index.php/Royal_Prince_Alfred_Hospital. Details
Elizabeth Daniels
Created: 15 June 2018, Last modified: 17 August 2023