Author: Dr Sue Rosen
Garrawarra Hospital was established as a centre for the aged and chronically ill in 1958. Formerly Garrawarra served as a tuberculosis treatment facility and was known as the Waterfall State Sanatorium, and in its earliest years, from 1909 - 1913, as the Hospital for Consumptives.
As the early European settlers were relatively free of tuberculosis Australia gained a reputation in Britain as having a climate conducive to the cure of consumption. The incidence of the disease in the colony gradually grew as English doctors prescribed the long sea voyage and several months residence in New South Wales for tubercular patients; from the 1860s the reputation of the climate, as being sufficient in itself to induce a cure, was becoming increasingly tarnished. Mortality increased. In 1882 Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tubercle bacillus and it became known that tuberculosis was an infectious disease. Until 1909 the only State institutions at which consumptives could be treated were the asylums for the poor; In that year the Waterfall State Sanatorium was established; almost 1135ha had been set aside for this purpose amongst hills approximately 48km from Sydney at an elevation of about 305m; a site selected because of its fresh air and isolation. Waterfall Hospital was officially opened on 14 April 1909 and the first patients were received in October.