[4] On 23 August 1936 St Patrick's Catholic Primary School was blessed and opened by Bishop of Rockhampton Romuald Denis Hayes.

[5] In 1941 the Sisters of Mercy purchased the house Brabourne (originally owned by prominent citizen Frederick Buss) and established St Mary's Hostel, for women and girls working in or visiting Bundaberg.

After World War II, doctors were calling for modern hospital facilities in Bundaberg, so the Sisters converted the hostel into the Mater Private Hospital, a 24-bed hospital with an operating theatre, chapel, and accommodation for the nurses and maids, officially opening on 28 July 1946.

The hospital expanded over the years with additional beds, operating theatres, X-ray, pathology and a dedicated children's ward.

It was the first hospital in Queensland to use the Zeiss ophthalmic microscope, the first regional hospital in Queensland to have a lymphoedema clinic, and to use facial recognition technology for endoscopic sinus surgery.