Karadi opened in Launceston around 1960. It was attached to the Queen Victoria Hospital. Karadi was originally a hostel for the relatives of out of town patients. Later it housed expectant mothers from King and Flinders Islands. The Catholic Welfare Family Bureau used Karadi for single mothers and organised adoptions from there. It closed around 1980.
According to Anne Cunningham, the families of young single mothers would send them to Karadi from southern Tasmania to conceal their pregnancies. There was such a stigma attached to these pregnancies that they were only allowed to leave the premises after dark.
Sources used to compile this entry: Cunningham, Anne, Background paper for the Minister of Community and Health Services on issues relating to historical adoption practices in Tasmania, Department of Community and Health Services, Hobart, 4 December 1996, 81 pp; Joint Select Committee, Parliament of Tasmania, Adoption and Related Services 1950-1988, 1999, https://web.archive.org/web/20210306200642/https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/Ctee/reports/adopt.pdf.
Prepared by: Caroline Evans
Created: 30 April 2012, Last modified: 23 October 2018