Portland District Health

Portland District Health provides an integrated health service which comprises acute, primary health and aged residential care services.

Our Service provides: 24-hour, 7 days a week Urgent Care Centre,
69 registered acute inpatient beds, 2 operating theatres (1 procedural/Scope theatre), 8-bed day procedure unit,
30 residential aged care (high care) – Harbourside Lodge,
Active Health Portland - our GP superclinic,
Community Health services.

Portland District Health is accredited with the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, the Aged Care Standards and Accreditation Agency Ltd and Home and Community Care National Service Standards.

PDH has an operating budget of around $37m and employs approximately 410 staff (277 EFT)

Portland’s health services are steeped in history with land set aside in April 1858 for an asylum for the benefit of the afflicted or distressed inhabitants and sojourners for the time being of and in the said Town and neighbourhood and for no other purpose whatsoever. The trustees who reserved that land were James Blair, Charles Arthur Dodd, Francis Henty, Thomas Must and Thomas Finn.

As a Benevolent Society, outdoor relief was distributed to "worthy objects" in the form of food, clothing, firewood and small sums of money. Those in need of nursing care were lodged with private families. In 1912, permission was granted to convert the institution to a district hospital and it continued to operate from the original blue stone building until 1954 when the needs of Portland and District outgrew the facilities. The bluestone buildings were demolished and replaced by a new facility.

Today, Portland District health is a public health service established under the Health Services Act 1988. Our health service was formed on 01 July 2003 through the amalgamation of the Portland and District Community Health Centre and the Portland and District Hospital.