The Porirua Hospital Museum, housed in the historic F Ward built in 1909, is New Zealand’s only dedicated museum of mental health history. It occupies part of the former Porirua Lunatic Asylum, which opened in 1887 and at one point was the country’s largest hospital, with over 1,500 patients by the 1940s. The museum presents a detailed timeline of psychiatric care in New Zealand, beginning with the first Wellington asylum in 1854.
Exhibits include early medical instruments, hospital crockery, key chains, seclusion rooms used for isolating patients, and photographs documenting daily life at the hospital. It also explores the evolution of treatment methods—such as the introduction of electroconvulsive therapy in 1944 and the use of early psychotropic drugs in the 1950s, which helped reduce the need for restraints.
Visitors can also listen to oral histories from former staff and patients, offering personal and often moving insights into life within the institution. Open to the public on Tuesday afternoons and run by volunteers, the museum serves as an important reminder of how far mental health care has come—and the lives shaped by that journey.
