[Melbourne District Nursing Service Centre Openings]

The Royal District Nursing Service was founded in 1885 and was originally called the Melbourne District Nursing Service. An initiative led by the Reverend Charles Strong, the organisation was established to nurse the sick, poor and disadvantaged in their own homes. By the early 1920s the nurses were treating 25,000 patients per year and had established a convalescent institution, the After-Care Home (later Hospital) in Collingwood. In 1966 the organisation became the Royal District Nursing Service.
This film captures the opening of two Melbourne District Nursing Service centres in Melbourne in 1964 and 1965 and an event celebrating the renaming of the organisation to the Royal District Nursing Service in 1966. The film features great footage of 1960s nursing equipment, uniforms, fashions of the period, architecture and interiors of the centres and procedures for nursing visits.
The first ceremony takes place on 28th February 1964 and features an opening speech by Lady Delacombe, the wife of Sir Rohan Delacombe, Governor of Victoria. The camera focuses on several photographs on the walls of the centre - including the first two nurses of the MDNS, Nurse Ferguson and Nurse Cannon; nurses in Victorian era uniform on bicycles; and nurses in the 1920s wearing pith helmets with red Maltese cross.
The opening of the Footscray Centre takes place on 5th April 1965 and the proceedings are opened by the Minister for Health, R. W. Mack. The final section of film shows an event celebrating renaming the organisation the Royal District Nursing Service, in 1966.