Rehabilitation centre for the Royal Adelaide opened in 1981 from Morris and Northfield old hospitals merger
Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre looks after inpatients and outpatients from Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre emerged in 1981 by combining what were originally the Morris Hospital (the renamed Northfield consumptive home, created to receive the terminally ill patients from Adelaide Hospital) and the Northfield infectious diseases hospital opened on Hampstead Road in the 1930s.
During World War II, the commonwealth defence department used the Morris Hospital for returned service personnel. It was returned to the state government and the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1946 and reverted to treating tuberculosis and cancer.
The Northfield infectious diseases hospital became the Northfield wards of the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1948. The hospital had cared for and isolated people with diseases including influenza, scarlet fever, diphtheria, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis (or consumption). Improved immunisation and more effective antibiotic drugs decreased patient numbers during the 1940s but a poliomyelitis epidemic of the late 1940s and early 1950s brought an influx of patients including adults and children.
The Royal Adelaide Hospital paraplegic unit, formed to cope with increased permanent spinal injuries from vehicle and industrial accidents, saw the Morris wards of former Morris Hospital take over this role in 1960. The whole of the hospital became part of Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1973.
With advances in the treatment, demand for tuberculosis beds decreased dramatically and the Northfield wards began to admit patients with other ailments from the 1950s. Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre, established in 1981 by merging the Northfield wards of the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Morris Hospital, provided extended care and rehabilitation of Royal Adelaide Hospital inpatients and outpatients. Rehabilitation units assisted orthopaedic patients with spinal injuries and amputations, as well as geriatric patients and people suffering brain injuries.
When it opened, Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre had 46 buildings with 237 beds. By the 2000s, it had 150 funded inpatient beds and employed more than 400 staff. The major focus of the inpatient units was highly specialised physical rehabilitation for clients with disabilities arising from medical and age related illness, orthopaedic injury and amputation, stroke, neurological illness, spinal cord and brain injury.
