Parents Gary and Lyn File were among those attending.
Mr File said the end of the building's life “seems wrong”.
“I'm sad to see it go,” he said.
“It's part of our lives, it's part of our children.”
He said three times at the maternity home were happy; one was not when the couple's baby was stillborn.
“That made us stronger people I guess.”
After their experience the Files, together with the local Parents Centre branch, donated a camera to the maternity home. Parents unfortunate enough to have a stillbirth could take a photograph before the baby was taken away.
“As long as I live, I will remember the telephone in there,” Mr File said.
Fathers would relay their news to the outside world “about the only baby who had ever been born”.
Mr File said he choked at the memory of ringing his mother four times from the maternity hospital.
He was one of those expectant fathers who were “the poor species of people who never quite knew where to put themselves, where to go, or not go”.
It was karma he said, “because they were kind of responsible for the ladies being there in the first place”.
Hauora Tairawhiti kaumatua Owen Lloyd said Monday's ceremony was a time to farewell the “grand old building” and the services it had provided.
He wanted to acknowledge those present who had “seen a lot of things, heard a lot of things and accomplished a lot of things”.
They had given the building life.
Karen Williams spoke of her son, born in Wairoa in 1976.
She and her newborn were flown to Gisborne where she was “put on the milking machine”.
She was grateful for the support of maternity staff.
Her son was now aged 40 and the father of four daughters.
Janet Willson said she had given birth to three children in the building and later enjoyed working there for Hauora Tairawhiti's population funding department, and “around the corner” for Alzheimer's Gisborne/Tairawhiti, before her retirement.
“I feel like my life has gone around in a big circle from babies to Alzheimer's.
“I really enjoyed those years.”
Former long-serving midwife Rosalie Kingsbeer said she had called the newborns “my babies”.
“You weren't allowed to do that because they do belong to the mother, but they were mine.”
Dr Karen Southall Matthews paid tribute to the late Dr Richard Oram and psychiatrist Dr John Marks. She described Dr Oram as selfless, and said that Dr Marks was “flourishing” in Vienna.
She had many funny stories including an experience with a patient who was dismayed she had turned down a gift of cannabis.
“The patient said ‘but Doc, it's my best, it's head'.”
Wi Harrison of Nikau Contractors said his company would look after the building during the demolition.
Eighty percent of the staff in his Auckland-based company were Ngati Porou, he said.
Close to 100 people attended the ceremony.
The maternity hospital was opened in 1969 and the building was closed in 2012 because of earthquake safety concerns.
After a series of reports and investigations, the Hauora Tairawhiti board confirmed the building was uneconomic to repair to above the required minimum of 63 percent of new building standards.
Puawai Aroha Gisborne Maternity Unit was opened in 1998 by which time the numbers of babies born in Gisborne had significantly reduced from 1960s levels and mothers were spending less time in hospital after birth.
There was a need to have maternity services located closer to the operating theatres and other facilities so a new, smaller, integrated facility was built as part of the main hospital complex.
In 2003 funds left in the dwindling Morris Adair fund were used to refit (and rename) the maternity building.
Hospital rooms were turned into offices and the building was used as a community health hub.
A variety of services were located there including the Cancer Society, Alzheimer's Society, Heart Foundation, Public Health, Planning and Funding and Community Mental Health.
Demolition is expected to take four months.
