GUEST SPEAKER: Jacqui Sheriff St John of God Health Care

Jacqui’s presentation was fascinating, as was the fact that an organisation would see great value in managing and sharing their heritage collections.  And across all of their services: hospitals, pathology, head offices, and outreach services across WA, Vic, NSW and NZ.  This involves establishing a heritage collection policy, ensuring that industry standards are met, writing procedures and guidelines and providing practical, hands on assistance.
 

A lot of people in WA will know about St John of God Health Services, either through personal contact or via a friend or family.  Those older members might even remember the nuns who used to provide most of the hands-on services.

 

Most of the nuns that came to WA were from Ireland but there were similar religious communities in France and Spain.  They also provided educational services especially in remote communities, such as Beagle Bay near Broome.  The first group of 8 nuns came from Wexford in Southern Ireland, answering a call for help from Perth Bishop Gibney, to help WA recover from a typhoid epidemic in 1895.
 

If you have time when you visit Broome, go to the Cathedral Museum and read the accounts of Irish nuns arriving at Beagle Bay Mission, striding through waist-deep water onto the beach in full habits as there was no wharf where their boat could berth.  The Irish Monsignor greeted the group giving thanks that his prayers had been answered.  When the nun’s leader asked what he had prayed for, he responded that his priests would no longer have to clean the church buildings or prepare their own meals.  Her response indicated he might perform some anatomically impossible task upon himself and took her nuns off to establish a school and an infirmary focussed on the local indigenous community!