Toowoomba Hospital Foundation approved for $5m health museum by Toowoomba Regional Council

Work will start soon on an ‘exciting’ new Toowoomba museum project dedicated to the region’s health sector. Here’s what it will look like and how you can get involved.

A new $5m museum and performance space dedicated to the history of healthcare across the Darling Downs will be a “haunting and exciting” learning space for visitors when it opens in 2023.

The Toowoomba Hospital Foundation has been approved by Toowoomba Regional Council for a sprawling three-stage historical preservation project on the campus of Baillie Henderson Hospital.

The development will be created out of the old superintendent’s building fronting Hogg St in Cranley, which is heritage-listed but has fallen into disrepair over the years.

Concept art for the approved Darling Downs health museum near the Baillie Henderson hospital by Toowoomba Hospital Foundation on Hogg Street in Cranley.

It will include a gallery for museum items, parking lot, cafe, reception area and use the natural contours of the site to create an amphitheatre to host events.

Foundation CEO Alison Kennedy said she hoped to see the museum open before the end of next year.

“This is a long time coming for the community who has worked on the museum for many years,” she said.

“Our museum will offer a space for people to reflect and remember, it will give people a real connection to the region and the Darling Downs, and to the health services across the years.

“It will be haunting, exciting and a learning space — we will encourage the kids and schools to come to learn about Darling Downs health.

“It will be amazing for the region, it will bring people from great distances to see it.”

PROPOSED: The old superintendent’s building on the Baillie Henderson Hospital site along Hogg Street will be transformed into a beautiful museum, cafe and function/performance space by the Toowoomba Hospital Foundation.

Ms Kennedy said volunteers were currently sorting through the vast collection of items that will be on display in the museum, adding that a sale will be held next year of pieces that don’t make the cut.

“There’s not a current museum people can enter, so everything is being collated and we’ve got a volunteer organisation doing that right now,” she said.

“We’ll be selling some of the pieces off so we can reinvest into the museum — everything that remains will be in the museum.”

Ms Kennedy said residents could contribute to the project by buying a brick that will be included into the final museum.

For more information, head to the website.