By Bryn Jones
In the early 1950s the Royal Australian Medical Corps was searching for a suitable site to establish Australia’s first School of Army Health.
What better place than Summerleigh Lodge, formerly one of Healesville’s elite guesthouses, set in 89 acres of picturesque, rolling countryside, including a nine hole golf course, a swimming pool, tennis courts, a large ballroom and many other buildings. No, it was not to become a rest and recreational centre for weary medics; it was intended to house and train medical staff for tasks they would encounter at home and overseas.
With some modifications and conditions to meet the Army’s special requirements, the site, reportedly purchased from Mr Holloway for £40,000 ($80,000) was an ideal location where the Army could provide thorough and vigorous training for both regular soldiers and national servicemen, students from nursing and dental corps and trainees from the Pacific Islands and Malaysia.
Inside the main building and nearby garages a small hospital with dental and x-ray facilities, a laboratory and enough classrooms for up to 200 students were created.
Students were taught most of their basic medical training in the surrounding bush. They ‘lived’ under canvas to study the running of a field casualty station, and conditions were as realistic as possible, with ‘battle injuries’ simulated by synthetic ‘wounds’ and lifelike models. Even large scale displays of mosquitoes and flies were set up around the grounds for students studying sanitation and infection control. Most of the medical staff who went to Vietnam, at some stage, went through training at Healesville.
The School of Health established an excellent relationship with the town, so much so, that in 1974 t was granted Freedom of the Shire by the Shire Council. This allowed them to march through the town with ‘bayonets fixed, drums beating, and colours flying’. They exercised this right in December 1981. High ranking police and mounted police ‘issued the challenge’ before allowing the march to continue, in a colourful and time worn ceremony.
In 1986, in a re-organisation of Army facilities, The Minister of Defence announced that the School of Army Health would be relocated to the former Officers Training Facility at Portsea.
The move was a great blow to Healesville, both in economic terms and in the close relationship that had been established between the Army and the town.
