Patient Files, Lunatic Asylum, Hospital for the Insane, Mental Diseases Hospital, Lachlan Park Hospital, and the Royal Derwent Hospital

The Patient Files pertain to the Lunatic Asylum, Hospital for the Insane, Mental Diseases Hospital, Lachlan Park Hospital, and the Royal Derwent Hospital between 1857 and 1993. The titles of the files include the patients name.

Access Conditions

Closed E75 years
E75 means that records in this series that have final entries less than 75 years old are closed to the general public. People wishing to access these records should contact Mental Health Services which is in the Department of Health and Human Services, to obtain permission. Applicants will be required to fill out a Personal Information Protection (PIP) form. Staff at the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office may be able to assist you in finding other relevant records.

Records

Prior to 1890, patients’ files only contain admission papers. Occasionally they also include some correspondence.

Files went with patients when they were transferred between Millbrook Rise Hospital and the other hospitals. This means that these patients only have one file.

The series is divided into consignments:

• Consignment 1 contains files of patients who were admitted after 1890 and had been discharged or died by 1965. Most files contain admission papers and correspondence with relatives and/or the Charitable Grants Department and the later Social Services and Social Welfare Departments. The files do not contain any clinical information. Instead this can be found in case books. These can be found in either series AB365 or series AB479.
• Consignment 2 contains files of patients who died between 1966 and 1993.
• Consignment 3 contains files of patients who were discharged between 1966 and 1993.

Some patients may also have a treatment file in HSD291.