The Kerang & District Hospital building in Burgoyne Street, Kerang was officially opened on the 21st September 1954, by His Excellency the Governor of Victoria Sir Dallas Brooks.
The two storey Hospital was built as a 46 bed acute hospital providing medical, surgical, obstetric, and accident & emergency services.
In 1974 the Board of Management launched a major fundraising appeal to build a twenty bed nursing home adjacent to the hospital and after several years of fundraising, His Excellency Sir Henry Winneke, Governor of Victoria officially opened “Glenarm” on 26 April 1979.
In 1979, a day activity centre was established in Nolan Street, in a building owned by the Catholic Church and day activity services operated from this site until May 1991. During 1990/91 completion and occupation of a purpose built day activity centre was realised. The building was named the W D Thomas Day Centre in honour of a former Board Member Mr Des Thomas.
The last 25 years has seen the introduction of services such as; pathology, radiology, welfare, physiotherapy and district nursing and health promotion.
The completion of a Master Plan in November 1991 and acceptance of concept plans developed from this process formed the basis of future strategic planning for Kerang & District Hospital.
Stage one of the re-development in 1993 saw the addition of ten beds to “Glenarm”, four being allocated by the Commonwealth Government and six being relocated from the Hospital.
Stage two involved the relocation of all beds and services from the first floor of the hospital building to the ground floor and this work was completed in 1992 with the building of a new operating theatre. During the project the physiotherapy service was relocated from the main hospital building to the nurse’s home.
Stage three in 1993 saw a refurbishment of the midwifery area and the creation of a conference room on the first floor.
In late 1999 after several years of discussions the Gannawarra Neighbourhood House in Kerang and Cohuna became part of Kerang & District Hospital.
In April 2002 two shops were purchased in Fitzroy Street. One to be used by the Kerang & District Hospital Ladies Auxiliary for their Opportunity Shop and the other to be used by the District Nursing Service and Health Promotion. The District Nursing Centre was officially opened by Mr Peter Walsh, State Member of Parliament for Swan Hill, in October 2003.
On 18 June 2002 the Governor in Council amended Schedule 1 of the Health Services Act to amend the name of Kerang & District Hospital to Kerang District Health. Although there were no major changes made to services offered at Kerang, the Board of Management believed that the organisation offers much more than hospital services to the community.
In August 2005 work was completed on a Day Surgery Recovery Room, built adjacent to Theatre at a cost of $372,322.00
Also in August 2005 the Department of Human Services announced that it would fund the completion of a Capital Master Plan for Kerang District Health.
The Capital Master Planning process was completed in June 2010.
In May 2011 the State and Federal Governments announced combined capital funding of $36.25 million for the redevelopment of acute and aged care facilities.
The first stage of the building program, the “Early Works” commenced in June 2012 and was completed in June 2013. The second stage of the building program, the “Main Works” commenced in July 2013 and is now complete. were completed in April 2016 when hospital patients moved into the refurbished acute ward and aged care residents moved into the new Glenarm.
The redevelopment was completed with an extension to the WD Thomas Activity Centre and refurbishment of the Administration floor at the end of 2017.
