On Sunday night, Dr Karen Williams snuck in to have one last look around Thirroul's new women's-only hospital for victims and survivors of trauma and domestic violence before the first patients arrived on Monday.
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"It was all empty, and I just wandered around the wards and went 'wow this is truly happening', we have made it happen," the Wollongong psychiatrist said.
"I didn't think I would ever win the fight, I thought this would be something I would spend years advocating for. I thought there would never be a finish line. So I get quite tearful seeing it all happen."
In May, Ramsay Health unveiled plans to turn its former rehabilitation hospital into Australia's first women's stand-alone, trauma-informed mental health service.
Under the leadership of Dr Williams, the hospital has been transformed into a light-filled, peaceful and safe space which can accommodate 43 inpatients.
Six women checked-in on Monday, with six to come on Tuesday, arriving from across Australia for a trauma treatment program offered nowhere else.
The hospital will veer away from simply treating symptoms of trauma - like depression or anxiety - to identifying and treating the underlying cause, and will help women who are survivors of domestic violence and other trauma, including veterans, refugees and car crash victims.
In the initial three-week intake, patients will do group therapy every day and can also take part in activities like art therapy, yoga and exercise groups.
Once fully up and running, the clinic will also offer day patient programs, and aims to become a training centre for psychiatric, medical, psychological and other allied health and nursing students.
"As soon as our phone was plugged in to the wall it started ringing, and it hasn't really stopped," Dr Williams said.
"In this first intake alone, we've got patients from all around Australia and at least half are not local - there is someone from the Northern Territory."
She has been overwhelmed - but also saddened - by this response.
"I've been thinking about how I would start talking to the patients in this first group - and I feel like I should be saying I'm sorry," she said.
"I'm sorry that it's taken us so long to respond to you. People shouldn't have to wait for so long, and they shouldn't have to fly in.
"I don't think it's okay that we in society have left this so neglected that people have to come in from a different state to access trauma therapy."
She said the clinic had more referrals than it would be able to handle, which showed the dire need for better treatment given the high rates of domestic and sexual violence.
"The response has made me feel validated, but at the same time really sad - it's a real reminder of how much women have suffered and have been desperately wanting help," she said.
"It's bittersweet, because this is nowhere near enough - it's so exciting that Ramsay has agreed to come onboard, but we can't take all these patients, there can't just be one place and we do have to think more broadly."
She said she would like to see private/public partnerships, where private hospitals could build facilities like the Thirroul clinic and the government could buy public beds within them.
Despite there being a long way to go for broader access to trauma treatment, Dr Williams said she hoped her first 12 patients would walk away knowing they were not "faulty or broken".
"I really hope that these women can see that there's nothing wrong with them, but that something bad happened to them and their body has responded to that trauma in a way that our body would respond to any trauma," she said.
"If a person has been stabbed and is bleeding, we say 'well you've been injured, you have symptoms, it's painful and we need to fix it'. We don't say there is something wrong with them as people.
"It's the same idea, that these women walk away recognising that there something that has happened to them that has caused an injury, and we will work on helping them heal that injury.
"We're not meant to be hurt by others and be okay with it - if our loved ones hurt us, we're we're not supposed to be alright with it. I want them to see that they are normal in their pain, but that we can treat that and there is hope for life without those feelings."
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