Helen Mayo

In May 1909, Mayo presented a paper to an interstate conference on the subject of infant mortality. In it, she addressed the high infant mortality rate in South Australia,[1] and claimed that more needed to be done to educate women for motherhood.[7] Later that year, after hearing a talk about the success of a school for mothers in London, she and Harriet Stirling (the daughter of Edward Stirling) founded the School for Mothers in Adelaide. The Kindergarten Union made a room in its offices available for one afternoon a week, where a nurse would weigh babies and Mayo and Stirling would give advice.[1] At the first annual meeting of the School a prominent medical doctor criticised the organisation for thinking that spinsters could teach mothers, who were guided by the "mother instinct" (both Mayo and Stirling were childless).[7] In spite of this, the organisation flourished,[7] and in 1911 a cottage in Wright Street was purchased and became the headquarters of the School.[1] In 1927, the organisation became the Mothers' and Babies' Health Association (MBHA),[1] and by 1932, it had branches throughout South Australia.[7] Mayo's colleagues during this period included Dr. Marie Brown (1883–1949). Mayo served as the honorary medical officer of the association until her death in 1967,[2] by which time the organisation gained a training school for maternal nurses and a hospital.[1] In her honour, the Association inaugurated the annual Helen Mayo lecture. Eventually, in 1981, the Mothers' and Babies' Health Association was incorporated into the Department of Health of the South Australian Government.[5]

After visiting Melbourne to learn how to make vaccines,[6] in 1911 Mayo was appointed clinical bacteriologist at the Adelaide Hospital, a position she would hold for 22 years.[5]

The Mareeba Hospital, c 1917

In the early part of the 1910s, there was an urgent need for medical facilities to treat infants in South Australia since, due to the risks of cross-infection, the Adelaide Children's Hospital would not treat those under the age of two.[1] In 1913, Mayo and Stirling called a meeting of medical practitioners to discuss the prospect of a hospital for these children. After doubts about the practicality of such a plan were expressed, the group raised some funds and presented to the board of the Adelaide Children's Hospital a plan to use the funds to build a separate ward on the grounds of the hospital. The board rejected the proposal, so Mayo and her group rented a two-storey house in St. Peter's and opened a hospital for infants in 1914.[1] Financial difficulties for the hospital eventually became overwhelming and the state government took over the hospital, moving it to Woodville and renaming it the Mareeba Hospital.[1]

Mayo played a central role in establishing Mareeba Hospital and forming its policy, serving as honorary physician, and as honorary responsible officer from 1921 to 1946.[1] To combat the risks of cross-infection, she instituted a policy of strict isolation of babies from other patients. Each child had their own locker, where their own equipment would be kept, gowns used by nurses to tend to one child would only be used for that child, and blankets, bottles and floors were all sterilised.[8] Mareeba eventually became a 70-bed hospital, complete with a surgical unit and a ward for premature babies.[1]

In 1919, The Adelaide Children's Hospital advertised for honorary physicians. Believing that her gender would prevent her being given the position, Mayo initially declined to apply. However, following a recommendation by Adelaide surgeon Henry Simpson Newland, Mayo applied for the post, and that year was appointed honorary Assistant Physician in charge of outpatients. With positions at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the Children's Hospital and the Mareeba Hospital, as well as commitments at her private practice, Mayo commenced her Doctor of Medicine degree in 1925.[9] She used her experiences as a clinical bacteriologist at the Adelaide Hospital as the basis for her thesis, which she was forced to write on the weekends, such was the volume of her workload.[9] The following year, she became the first woman to receive an MD from the University of Adelaide.[2] She was subsequently appointed honorary physician to inpatients at the Children's Hospital,[2] and a clinical lecturer at the University of Adelaide.[9] In May 1935 Mayo was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services in connection with maternal and child welfare in the state of South Australia."[10]

She retired in 1938 and became an honorary consulting physician at the Children's Hospital, but when the Second World War broke out, she returned to the hospital as senior paediatric adviser, at the same time organising the Red Cross donor transfusion service.[2] Dr Elma Linton Sandford-Morgan (22 February 1890 – 1983[11]), author of ABC of Mothercraft,[12] was appointed medical officer for MBHA in 1937.[13] She was a daughter of industrialist and politician A. Wallace Sandford.