Mater Dei Hospital
Catholic hospital on Chesterton Road, founded by Franciscan sisters in the 1950s and still run under a Catholic board of trustees.
Mater Dei (“Mother of God”) is Bulawayo’s Catholic hospital. It stands on Chesterton Road and was founded by Franciscan sisters in the 1950s. Today it is owned and run by a board of trustees that includes the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood. It has about 170 beds and an emergency department, and serves both private and public patients.
Like Lady Rodwell, Mater Dei is where a good many Bulawayo people were born. Among them, in 1978, was Charlene Wittstock, the Olympic swimmer who became Princess of Monaco.
What the photographs show
The photographs in this set were taken around 2005. They show the hospital sign, the public entrance and gate, the wards and wings, the emergency wing, and the chapel.
What we don’t know yet
- The founding. Which year it opened, which sisters came, and from where.
- The nursing sisters. Generations of Bulawayo people were cared for by the Franciscan sisters at Mater Dei. If you trained or worked there, as a sister, nurse or doctor, or were born there, we would like to hear from you.
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Mater Dei Hospital (Bulawayo)”: founding by Franciscan nuns in the 1950s, trustees, location, beds.
- Global Sisters Report, on the Franciscan sisters at Mater Dei.
19 photographs of Mater Dei Hospital →
Do you know more about this? Corrections, photographs and your own account are all welcome, and a correction is published on the page with the date it was made. Send something in.