Plenty Valley Repatriation Asylum
| Plenty Valley Repatriation Asylum | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1959 |
| Opened | 1963 |
| Closed | 1991 |
| Current Status | Closed |
| Building Style | Cottage Plan |
| Location | Bundoora, VIC |
| Alternate Names |
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History[edit]
Plenty Hospital was gazetted as a separate institution in 1963 with 12 wards and Dr G.L. Rollo was the Acting Psychiatrist Superintendent, after Dr A. Arnaud Reid (the Psychiatrist Superintendent) had helped establish the facility. There were six wards for 237 men and six wards for the 237 women. Only three of these wards were locked, to prevent these elderly patients from wandering. At the end of 1964, Plenty Mental Hospital had 533 patients on the books, increasing to 553 by the end of 1965. Plenty Hospital utilised some of the very first buildings erected on the Mont Park site, and two of these structures still remain in the Springthorpe Estate – now refurbished as units. They were the Plenty Ward D, the former Plenty Female Convalescent Ward built in 1939 (now Kingsbury Gardens, Main Drive) and Plenty Wards E and F, now units opposite Kingsbury Gardens but facing onto Ernest Jones Drive.
Plenty was one of three psychiatric institutions (Plenty, Larundel and Mont Park) on a large campus at Bundoora. At the time, this was still Melbourne’s north east fringe. Like Larundel and Mont Park, Plenty had a mix of acute and extended-care wards, with the latter having a number of long-term patients.
In September 1971, buildings known as Wards C and R were separately proclaimed the Plenty Psychiatric Hospital. In 1980, Ward D and Ward M (rooms 1 and 4) were also removed from the Mental Hospital and added to the Plenty Psychiatric Hospital. Plenty was one of several hospitals that were gradually split off from the Mont Park administration to form separate entities. They were the Macleod Repatriation Hospital (1915), the Bundoora Repatriation Hospital (1920), the Gresswell Sanatorium (1933), Larundel Mental Hospital (1938 opened 1951), the Plenty Mental Hospital (1963) and the Kingsbury Training Centre (1974).
By 1985, Bundoora had been overtaken by suburban sprawl. In 1991, Plenty amalgamated with Mont Park and Larundel Hospitals to become the North Eastern Metropolitan Psychiatric Services (NEMPS).
