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Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, originally known as Queens Memorial Infectious Diseases Hospital, operated from 1904 to its closure in 1996. Perched high on the banks of the Yarra River at Yarra Bend in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fairfield, it developed an international reputation for the research and treatment of infectious diseases. When it closed, it was the last specific infectious diseases hospital in Australia.

Initially the hospital was devoted to the treatment of patients with fevers. Diseases treated included typhoid, diphtheria, cholera, smallpox, poliomyelitis and scarlet fever, and in its final years, HIV/AIDS became very prominent.

Architecture and construction

Fairfield Hospital is considered to be among the best examples of hospital architecture in Australia in the period 1900-49. A number of well-known Australian architects contributed to the hospital's design from its the 1900s to the 1990s. The hospital was built in several stages and features several different yet complementary architectual styles

1901

The hospital's original buildings consisted of two wards (one each for diptheria and scarlet fever), an administration block, laundry, kitchen, recieving house, lodge and nurses' home to accomodate twenty nurses. The design of the original buildings have been attributed to the Public Works Department's Chief Architect, JH Marsden and alternately Clegg, Kell & Miller. The two original ward blocks feature distinctive picturesque roof turrets and narrow plan forms to maximise cross-ventilation.

1917

In 1917, the initial stages of the nurses home were constructed, with further additions in 1924 and 1932. A new, larger administration block was built in front of the original administration building in 1917, and the earlier building was converted into ****something**** Both the Nurses' home and Admininstration block have been atributed to architects A&K Henderson

Heritage listing

and the circular plan of the ambulance garage 1940 and the zig-zag form of the FG Scholes block of 1947, both designed under Percy Everett, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department. Some of the ornamental planting developed under Guilfoyle and Linacre includes fine mature specimens of Cedrus deodara, Eucalyptus cladocalyx and rare trees such as Ficus palmata. More typical planting included cypress hedges and palms.(Yarra bend walk)

Why is it significant?

References

• W. K. Anderson, Fever Hospital. A History of Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, Melbourne University Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0522849644
• "Fairfield Hospital Group". Australian Heritage Places Inventory. Retrieved 2009-10-20.