Melville Clinic history in brief
In 1974, the former Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital opened and managed Melville Clinic, one of Victoria’s first community mental health clinics situated at 35 Melville Road, West Brunswick.
Melville Clinic included a multidisciplinary team and provided free psychiatric services to people aged 16 to 64 with psychiatric disorders, their families and carers.
It included the following functions:
- acute psychiatric services
- case management system
- rehabilitation services
- pharmacy
- geriatric psychiatry services
Melville Clinic closure date is estimated at 1997, but cannot be confirmed.
Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital 1907–99
In 1907, Royal Park Receiving House and Hospital for the Insane (located in Parkville) was Victoria’s first psychiatric hospital established after the Lunacy Act 1903. It was intended for patients with curable disorders and operated for over 90 years. Royal Park Hospital along with Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Children's Hospital and Mount Royal formed the Parkville Hospital Precinct. The Mental Hygiene Act 1933 changed the title from "Royal Park Hospital for the Insane" to "Royal Park Mental Hospital".
In April 1954, Royal Park's function as a Mental Hospital was revoked whereupon Royal Park functioned as a hospital providing short term diagnosis and accommodation only. The Mental Health Act 1959 changed the title to "Psychiatric Hospital".
In the 1990s, the Victorian Government's policy of deinstitutionalisation saw Royal Park Hospital decommissioned. The old Receiving House became home to the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC), renamed Orygen Youth Health incorporating the EPPIC program.
After the 1999 closure of the Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital, inpatient psychiatric services were transferred to the new John Cade Building at Royal Melbourne Hospital City Campus, under the umbrella of NorthWestern Mental Health.
Warning about distressing information
This guide contains information that some people may find distressing. If you experienced abuse as a child or young person in an institution mentioned in this guide, it may be a difficult reading experience. Guides may also contain references to previous views, policies and practices that are regrettable and do not reflect the current views, policies or practices of the department or the State of Victoria. If you find this content distressing, please consult with a support person either from the Department of Health and Human Services or another agency.
Disclaimer
Please note that the content of this administrative history is provided for general information only and does not purport to be comprehensive. The department does not guarantee the accuracy of this administrative history. For more information on the history of child welfare in Australia, see Find & .
Source
- Archival Services agency histories
Patient information
PLEASE NOTE: Patients could be admitted to a Receiving House for short-term treatment and care, but were not permitted to remain longer than two months.
Patients still needing treatment after two months could be sent to a Psychiatric Hospital, in the same institution/complex or another.
Hence, there could be more than one set of records for any one person. Please check each location for former patient records.
List of records held by the department
For information relating to the central management of care leavers and wards of state, please consult the guide to Central department wardship and out-of-home care records. These collections date back to the 1860s and include ward registers, index cards and ward files.
Patient case histories (1996-97)
File; Temporary
Content: This collection contains patient case history files of people treated as outpatients at the Melville Clinic. The files record details of patient treatment and progress.
The files are arranged alphabetically by patients’ family names. File covers include the patients’ names and generally a file number.
Some files have no file number, and there appear to be at least two different number sequences on the files.
One sequence is a single number sequence of file numbers in the approximate range 10 to 4404. Some files are identified by unit record (UR) numbers.
Reviewed 23 August 2016