Sydney Hospital

Sydney Hospital is a major hospital in Australia, located on Macquarie Street in the Sydney central business district. It is the oldest hospital in Australia, dating back to 1788, and has been at its current location since 1811. It first received the name Sydney Hospital in 1881.

Currently the hospital comprises 113 inpatient beds. Specialist services attract patients from all over New South Wales. It specialises in ophthalmology and hand surgery and is a referral hospital for patients requiring these services. It also houses a rudimentary 6-bed Emergency Department.

Sydney Hospital became a teaching hospital of the University of Sydney in 1909.Sydney Hospital is associated with Sydney Medical School of the University of Sydney through the Discipline of Clinical Ophthalmology and Eye Health and Save Sight Institute.

Many of the 736 convicts who survived the voyage of the First Fleet from Portsmouth, England arrived suffering from dysentery, smallpox, scurvy, and typhoid. Soon after landing Governor Phillip and Surgeon-General John White established a tent hospital along what is now George Street in The Rocks to care for the worst cases. Subsequent convict boatloads had even higher rates of death and disease. A portable hospital which was prefabricated in England from wood and copper arrived in Sydney with the Second Fleet in 1790. Present-day Nurses Walk in The Rocks cuts across where the site of the early hospital once was. John White was Surgeon-General at Sydney Cove between 1788 and 1794.

Sydney Hospital
Historic Sydney Hospital is located in Macquarie Street and was designed by architect Thomas Rowe and begun in 1881. It still operates as a functioning hospital today. It also incorporates the Sydney Eye Hospital within its precinct.

Sydney Hospital - Staircase
Has one of the most distinctive and elaborate staircases in the central building in Sydney. There is a highly detailed and elaborate mosaic tile on the floor and wonderfully symmetrical multicoloured arches leading to the cedar wood staircase.

Sydney Hospital Aerial View
Sydney Hospital grounds incorporate historic sandstone buildings on Macquarie Street, the Nightingale Wing, the Worrall building an Sydney Eye Hospital.

Worral Building - Sydney Hospital
The Worrall building contains a lecture theatre and also the Sydney Hospital Chapel. It was designed in 1884 by architect John Kirkpatrick.

Sydney Hospital Gates
Sydney Hospital gates with their high Victorian design front Macquarie Street and offer an entrance to the historic precinct of the hospital.

Governor Macquarie's -Sydney Rum Hospital
The original Rum Hospital in Macquarie Street was built in 1816 and subsequently became partly Sydney Hospital and partly New South Wales Parliament House

Emeritus Professor Frank Bilson
Prof Frank Billson is one of the leading ophthalmologists from the Sydney Eye Hospital within Sydney Hospital.

Pre -fabricated Sydney Hospital
The original Sydney Hospital was located in a suite of prefabricated buildings at farm Cove and move to the current site in Macquarie Street in 1862.

Nightingale Wing - Sydney Hospital
The wing is a picturesque polychrome brick, four storeyed structure (1868-69) built to the design of Thomas Rowe and approved by Florence Nightingale. The gothic revival building became the home of the first nursing school in Australia, and was opened soon after the arrival of Miss Lucy Osburn, who was sent by Miss Nightingale with a team of five nurses from England to reform nursing practice at the hospital.

Little Shop - Sydney Hospital
The little shop building at Sydney Hospital was originally on the other side of Macquarie Street and served as a gatehouse. It now houses the volunteers which raise money for Sydney Hospital and is one of the most unusual and unique structures in Sydney. There are two such structures

Sydney Hospital

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