Fitzpatrick House is named after Mr David Fitzpatrick who worked was as an honorary surgeon and consultant at the then Gippsland Base Hospital for a total of 53 years. Fitzpatrick House carries his name as recognition for his service to the local community and district over an extraordinary number of years.
Mr Fitzpatrick died at Gippsland Base Hospital aged 86 years. He was born in Heyfield being the sixth son in a family of one girl and seven boys in 1899. He attended the Sale Agricultural College and graduated from Medicine in 1922. He married in 1924 and went to Tasmania before going to England. He obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1930 and returned to Sale in 1932. He started an independent practice and then formed a partnership with Dr G.A. Hagenaur. Mr Fitzpatrick was elected to Fellowship in the Royal Australian College of Surgeons in 1935 and in the same year obtained a commission in the Australian Army Medical Corps as a medical officer to the 4/19th Prince of Wales Light Horse Regiment.
During his life David Fitzpatrick distinguished himself as a general surgeon who was a perceptive and practical man who contributed much to the local hospital and local community. Notable as the only surgeon in the district for many years he was credited as the first to administer a blood transfusion in Gippsland in 1936. On one occasion he traveled 120km to Dargo where a woman had an intestinal haemorrhage. After setting up a transfusion he returned to Sale for more blood and then went back again to administer it, a difficult but necessary journey. He treated many serious accidents during his time as a surgeon and during the war years of World War II a notable accident occurred and injured many people who were at Seaspray bathing. An aircraft towing a target drogue at ground level ploughed into the bathers and Mr Fitzpatrick traveled to the beach to administer intravenous plasma and then later operated on the injured for many hours. There were many injured including two bilateral amputees but there was no loss of life.
Apart from medical events Mr Fitzpatrick was secretary and later president of the Gippsland subdivision of the British Medical Association as well as being Health Officer to the Rosedale Shire and president of the Sale Ambulance Service. He was also a member of the Committee of Management of Gippsland Base Hospital and for services rendered he was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1973.
Reference Source AMA Journal Obituary
