Chest (TB) Hospital at Cherbourg c1958

In the 1950s there is an outbreak of TB (Tuberculosis), a highly infectious disease of the lungs, in Queensland. Treatment for this disease requires total isolation until the patient completely recovers.

As well as isolation wards, a modern X-ray facility is included in the building — TB patients are X-rayed regularly on their progress. The windows and doors are fitted with metal bars and locks to ensure no one can leave.
The new wing receives its first patients – those previously confined in a separate room in the General Hospital. Patients from Woorabinda, another government settlement, are sent to the hospital to recover. The most serious cases are sent to the Chermside Hospital (Prince Charles Hospital) in Brisbane.

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The Cherbourg Memory is an initiative of the Rationshed Museum and brings together the photos, videos, oral history recordings, documents and other artifacts of our lives on this settlement. It a website, an archive, an educational resource, a recording project, a research data-base, a store of the people’s stories and an interactive space for comments and engagement. We encourage the people of Cherbourg, the Indigenous communities in Australia and others who have experience of our settlement to help us create a living archive of Barambah-Cherbourg. So find out a little more about the Cherbourg Memory, discover how you can Participate, or find out how you can Contribute to the development of the Cherbourg Memory.