The Little Company of Mary Health Care Sisters have played a pivotal role in supporting and advancing music therapy in Australia. Currently the Calvary Health Care Bethlehem Music Therapy Department consists of nine music therapists, and it is estimated that 30-40 music therapists have worked with the team across the past four decades.

A potted musical history of the Calvary Health Care Bethlehem Music Therapy Department

After completing music therapy-related placements in cancer and palliative care in the United States and Canada in mid-1984, Ms Clare O’Callaghan returned to her social work job at Calvary Health Care Bethlehem and lobbied for a funded music therapy position in the hospital’s neurological and hospice inpatient units.

The Little Company of Mary Health Care Administrator at the time, Sister Marie Hedigan, said that “music therapy exemplified the hospital’s mission” and Ms O’Callaghan commenced as the music therapist in spring 1984, soon resigning from her social work role.

Red Cross had also provided music therapy sessions to Calvary Health Care Bethlehem, including from Ms Alison Short in the early 1980s. Additional sessions were soon provided by Dr Lorna Lloyd Green RMT.

The hospital’s neuropsychologist, Ms Gemma Brown (nee Turnbull), played a pivotal role in clarifying neural foundations of music therapy’s extraordinary contribution to the quality of life of those with severe cognitive impairments, and often accompanied Ms O’Callaghan on her many talks about the “new” therapy to external organisations.

Their collaboration spawned earliest publications on the relevance of neural correlates of music for music therapy practice.

Ms O’Callaghan’s research on song writing conducted at the Hospital and at the Repatriation General Hospital Heidelberg oncology ward, supervised by Emeritus Prof Denise Grocke, was also the first published qualitative research in the Journal of Music Therapy.

Following Ms O’Callaghan’s departure in 1991, several music therapists led the expanding Department, including Ms Bridgit Hogan (until 2007), Ms Anne Horne Thompson, Ms Karen Bolger (2007 - 2023), Ms Anneliis Way (2014-2021), Ms Julia Oreopolous (2011-2014), Ms Chloe Garrett (2023-present), and Ms Eleanor Bajo (2021-present).

Ms Hogan and Ms Thompson also contributed important early music research in music therapy in palliative care (also supervised by Prof Grocke), using phenomenological and randomised controlled approaches respectively.

In 2025, the Music Therapy Department provides services to: inpatients (32-bed combined palliative care and neurological ward); a Music Therapy Outreach Program, which provides music therapy to many aged care and other service providers; the Palliative Care day centre; the Victorian Statewide Neurological Disease Service; a Community Palliative Care Service; and NDIS.

Specific music therapy programs currently include a weekly livestream called Lunchtunes, which was initiated by the team during the COVID-19 pandemic and is available to patients as well as the broader Calvary Kooyong precinct, where the hospital is located, and a Huntington’s disease choir called Enrich.

Bethlehem Music Therapy Department won the 2018 CHA Excellence in Pastoral Care Award for their therapeutic song writing project with a prominent Victorian who advocated for First Nations Awareness, so there are strong links to pastoral care in the Bethlehem music therapy program.

The annual Australian Musical Therapy Association (AMTA) held its 2025 national conference from Friday 17 to Sunday 19 October in Melbourne with Calvary musical therapists participating in the event.