Anzac Day 2026 | Sister Elizabeth Kenny

Elizabeth Kenny was known as a bush nurse and pioneer of Physio (physical) treatment for poliomyelitis (polio) in Southern Queensland and, later, worldwide.

The Kenny Method was seen as contrary to the remedial actions of many in the medical profession for many years; however, she preserved alleviating pain and enabling stiff limbs to move by applying hot poultices and massage to her patients suffering from the “mysterious paralysis”. It became known as infantile paralysis- or polio, as it was affecting mainly young children.

In the early years of Australia’s Federation, hospitals were desperately short in number. In 1913, at the age of 33, Elizabeth setup her own little hospital in Clifton, on the Darling Downs. Her mentor was Toowoomba surgeon/general practitioner, Doctor Aeneas McDonnell, who had set a young Elizabeth’s broken arm when she was a young girl.

In June 1915, wanting to contribute during World War I, Nurse Elizabeth Kenny sailed to England to join a nursing service tending to the wounded soldiers of The Great European War. To her amazement, she was rejected due to unqualified training.

In October 1915, she was bound for Australia as a civilian nurse on a troopship overcrowded with wounded and invalid soldiers being returned home. Here The Kenny (remedial) Physio Method aided many of the soldiers’ rehabilitation.

Nurse Kenny was to complete eleven more such trips between Britain and Australia; Including one via the Panama Canal.

On July 28, 1916, she was accepted by the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and appointed to No.1 Section, Sea Transport Staff.

In 1917, Nurse Kenny was promoted to Sister with the rank of Lieutenant. (She kept the title of Sister for the remainder of her life). She was discharged from the AANS on 28th March 1919.

After the War, Sister Kenny, encouraged by the success of her rehabilitation work with invalid soldiers and by seeing once-bedridden patients walking to school, reopened the little hospital in Clifton, Queensland.

She was ahead of her time in understanding the psychological effects of encouraging patients to move their limbs. Introducing remedial exercises to perform and hydrotherapy treatment, as well as the importance of psychologically, the idea that their condition was curable.

Sister Kenny continued to encounter serious opposition to her methods and philosophies by medical authorities. Her character was being attacked. Having self-confidence and being strong-willed, her commanding and assertive presence was deemed by her doctor critics as unfeminine. A nursing sister was meant to be in awe of doctors, not contradict their recommendations of immobilisation or surgical procedures for polio sufferers.

One of those walking former paralysed children, who was helped by the Kenny Method, was a boy named Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, who would later become Premier of Queensland.

Whilst continuing her valuable treatment, she invented the ‘Sylvia stretcher’ - a cushioned stretcher to make patients more comfortable during transit over rough and bumpy country roads. The successful marketing and adoption of the ‘Sylvia Stretcher’ and the small pension for her army service enabled her to have a modest income.

In 1934, Sister Kenny setup a small polio clinic in Townsville, North Queensland, and she was in demand by desperate parents of paralysed or semi-paralysed children. The doctors weren’t amused. However, the Queensland Government were prepared to offer assistance for four years. A small rehabilitation clinic was set up on the grounds of the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

In 1937, Sister Kenny was asked to come to England in response to the outbreak of polio. She was treated with greater respect by their medical authorities, and a Kenny Polio Treatment Clinic was opened in Surrey. Upon her return to Australia, she received an invitation from the Victorian State Government, as the rapid spread of polio was of growing concern. The Kenny method was considered worthy of being given “a shot”! (a go).

In 1940, during World War II, six Brisbane doctors who believed in Sister Kenny endorsed her trip to the United States to accept an invitation from the renowned Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, following the outbreak of a polio epidemic in that state. The Queensland Government paid her fares.
Sister Kenny took a teaching position at the University of Minneapolis Medical School, and beds were arranged for her patients at the university hospital.

The National Polio Foundation of America rendered moral and financial assistance. Another generous benefactor granted her a lifetime monthly allowance, ensuring her financial stability.

In 1942, the Kenny Institute was established in the USA, and soon many clinics were set up. Many accolades and awards were being received as well.

Large numbers of people flocked to their heroine with “healing hands” to attend Sister Kenny’s clinics and lectures. She accepted an invitation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to visit the White House. The President himself a victim of polio.

Sister Kenny retired to live in Toowoomba in 1950. Her well-being was beginning to decline, the blessed lady with “healing hands” was suffering from Parkinsons Disease.

Sister Elizabeth Kenny died on 30th November, 1952, aged 72.

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Footnotes:

• Sister Kenny’s WW1 nursing experience helped endorse her post-war career. Becoming a legendary Australian figure.
  
• A little while following her death, Jonas Salk an American doctor, produced a vaccine against poliomyelitis. The disease was virtually wiped out in the developed world within twenty years.

Bibliography:

• The Complete Book of Great Australian Women: Sister Elizabeth Kenny, chapter 10, pp 249- 256.
  
  
• Australian Dictionary of Biography: Elizabeth Kenny - Vol.9, 1983 - Ross Patrick. (internet).