Blog No. 341 - Beyond Exhaustion – Part 2: Young Adult Me - 8 November 2025

Beyond Exhaustion – Part 2: Young Adult Me

- Written 25 September 2025 - 

My son, Chris Hankin was born in the Canberra Community Hospital which was later renamed as the Royal Canberra Hospital. The hospital served Canberra for a few decades, being built in 1942 on the Acton Peninsula. Its location was prime to say the least, it oversaw Lake Burley Griffin, and stood close to the Australian National University. Yet, after many years of service, and large amounts of opposition, the hospital was closed in 1991. 6 years later, the hospital itself was demolished to construct the National Museum of Australia. 

Days before the demolition, the government framed it as a spectator event because an implosion of the building would take place.  Who doesn't love a good implosion? Apparently many did. Around 100,000 people would attend the implosion, making it one of the biggest spectator turnouts in Canberra’s history.  Unfortunately, because of a lack of planning (and other factors), the implosion was botched. The price was a human life, as pieces of debris launched through the air for almost a kilometre.  One piece of rubble struck 12 year old Katie Bender in the head, instantly killing her. This was a tragedy that should not have happened. 9 others were injured by the failed implosion.  The relevant politicians did not resign. 

Royal Canberra Hospital mid implosion. You can see a plume of smoke rising upwards from one of the buildings; this was one of the explosions that launched debris into the surrounding areas. The studies made before the implosion said it would be safe if there was an exclusion zone of 50 metres. The police set up a 200 metre exclusion zone. 

Another angle of the hospital. In the background you can see the great number of spectators along the banks of lake Burley Griffin. Just in front of the spectators are multiple scattered splashes where debris landed. The implosion failed.  The hospital had to be manually demolished afterwards. I moved to Canberra in 1970.

****

I was with my new wife.

Our son was born that same year.

Death gave my wife an intimate embrace in Canberra.

But somehow she survived.

Somehow I survived.

Somehow our son survived.

The three of us were worn out,

But we were not exhausted.

We were still Super heroes.

When we returned to Melbourne, our marriage died.

I lost my wife for real this time.

I lost my son too.

A stranger took my place.

I became jobless;

I had zero money

I had zero future.

I commenced wandering the Shadow Lands

Eventually I got a job driving trucks for the Salvation Army,

I picked up old newspapers and old furniture.

I had helpers.

The barely functioning me had a crew of homeless alcoholic men.

The flawed helped the not yet completely flawed.

****

Much time has passed since then, and things can change a lot very quickly. I worked at a Salvos Depot in Abbotsford for a while. I had never driven a truck before, but I was still hired to drive trucks.  The homeless men who worked on my truck did not like the Salvos much back then. In 2025, there is a Salvos outlet Abbotsford on the banks of the Yarra River, with the Yarra Bend Park opposite. I am certain this is the same location where I once worked, although now it is a retail outlet.  The surrounding streets in Abbotsford have renewed from accommodation for the very poor into commercial industry. 

The Salvos location where I worked in the 1970s. 

****

I slowly regained some strength.

I became a clerk in the A & E department of a major Melbourne hospital.

Doing shift work directing the shuffling queue of the very ill and the not quite so very ill.

Some patients never got inside the hospital door.

If you died in the ambulance, you could never become a patient.

Dead people were not treated.

I still recorded the arrival of the dead.

Those who cared for the dead sometimes came to A & E.

They asked the obvious questions.

In a sense, the dead had been in A & E,

But not really.

Too often, the doctors would not talk to those asking about the dead.

The dead had never been patients at the hospital.

They had not arrived at A & E in a treatable format.

Whether treated or not, desperate relatives still demanded information.

They always demanded that information from me.

One lady would not move

Where was her husband?

He had been taken away by ambulance.

The ambulance staff had told her the intended destination.

The doctors hid.

They refused to tell her anything.

I told the lady the truth.

The widow immediately collapsed.

The hospital had one more patient. 

They told me I had done wrong.

I should have forced a doctor to talk to her;

One of the doctors who had refused to talk to her,

I should have forced a doctor who had run away,

Afraid to tell her anything.

I was exhausted.

I was no longer a Super Hero.

Even though life was so desperately hard.

I kept going.

I was so very strong.

****

This photo was taken inside The Royal Melbourne Women's Hospital around 1980. The beds themselves were very different from modern beds. Just from a glance, it looks like a normal bed. Technology has advanced so rapidly since then. (Diaz, M. (1980). Staff, patients, visitors and buildings, Royal Women’s Hospital / Maggie Diaz.)

Photo of ambulances outside Casualty entry to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. I worked here in the 1970s but the photo dates from the 1950s. The building itself was the same when I worked there. The ambulances looked different. I remember Sister Marg Nuttal. She was head nurse, and a very competent one. She often knew more than the doctors.

When I worked there, the Royal Melbourne Hospital A&E was called the Casualty Department. The work was hard and draining. 

Perhaps the hardest part of the job was the shift hours. One week I would work a day shift for 5 days from 8:00am until 3:00pm. Next week I worked the afternoon shift from 3:00pm until 11:00pm.  In week three I worked the night shift from around 11:00pm until 8:00am. In week four, I worked a Kangaroo Shift involving day, afternoon and night shift all in the same week. I sometimes finished the night shift at 8:00 am, and started the afternoon shift later that same day.  The doctors in Casualty worked far worse hours.  Every four weeks they were rostered to start at 3.00 pm on Friday afternoon and were not permitted to leave the hospital until 8.00 am on Monday.  If work permitted, they were allowed to sleep in a bunk in the hospital but had to respond to pagers when they went off.

Adding to the hard working hours, we had our own local arrangement.  Our shift replacement would come in at 2.00 pm instead of 3.00 pm so we could go home an hour early. 

The pressure of working at RMH was immense.