TERRITORIAL NURSES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 97, 2 August 1910, Page 4

TERRITORIAL NURSES.

"We women," «a'id Miss Haldane, sister of the Secretary for War, the other day, "can do work fot> ihe Army as real as if we shouldered' 1 -'* rifle and wielded a sword" She was talking about the wreat organisation 'of Territorial nurses m Britain, and as New Zealand wants Territorial nurses quite as much as she wants Territorial soldiers, the subject is mentioned. Twenty-three hospitals have ibeen organised in England. Each of these hospitals has 520 beds. The hospitals are public buildings, such as schools, which have been ear-marked as hospitals for use in time of war. The personnel of the hospitals has been definitely fixed The most distinguished physicians and! surgeons have volunteered their services., an,administrative staff is ready, and, what'is more important, there is a nursing staff, the members of which are ready to step into their places the moment they are required. These Territorial nurseg are carefully selected, high-ly-trained' women, and their duties have been carefully assigned to them. Voluntary aid detachments—units of fortyeight men and twenty women each—are springing up all over the country ready to assist in the conveyance of wounded from the field either to their own homes or to the hospitals. The whole of this work is undertaken by the British Red Cross Society and the St. John and St. Andrew Ambulance Societies. In Gloucestershire thirty-four detachments have been raised; and of these each women's detachment is being so organised and trained that it can, at four or five hours' notice, house and provide for fifty sicki and wounded men. ■ New Zealand has a, complete paper system for training nurses in times of peace for use in war, but it has no nurses. An army without nurses is a feeble thing. In Japan the system is magnificent. There are one million members of the Red Cross Society with an income of one million poundls per annum. This iSociety exists only to minimise the horrors of war, and it is founded in the heart of the-people, and in the national sentiment that believes soldiers should be cared for, and are no use when they are dead. If war came to New Zealand the army would be hampered with volunteer women, the majority of whom would be utterly useless, although eager and willing to do their share. The time for the organisation of a. nursing corps for the Territorial Army in New Zealand is now.