Lynore Geia – The Conversation

The facilities were poor and some inmates were subjected to unsuccessful experimentation with a “vaccine” that used arsenic compounds. Hospital Ward Dorre Island/State library of Western Australia

September 23, 2016

What do the newspapers really tell us about the lock hospital histories?

Melissa Sweet, University of Canberra; Kerry McCallum, University of Canberra, and Lynore Geia, James Cook University

The lock hospitals inflicted incalculable traumas on Aboriginal people, wrenching them away from families and country.

In the SBS documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, Peter Garrett traces the history of his grandmother, who worked in the “lock hospitals” as a nurse. Screenshot/Who Do You Think You Are/ SBS

September 21, 2016

Acknowledge the brutal history of Indigenous health care – for healing

Melissa Sweet, University of Canberra; Kerry McCallum, University of Canberra, and Lynore Geia, James Cook University

Hundreds of Aboriginal people were incarcerated on Dorre and Bernier islands for “venereal disease” between 1908 and 1919. The lock hospitals were penal rather than therapeutic institutions.

Contact Lynore for