VOLUNTEER SISTERHOOD.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1915, Page 2

VOLUNTEER SISTERHOOD.

LIFE IN AN EOYPTIAX HOSPITAL. STATEMENT BY NURSE HARRIS. Nurse Emma Harris, of the Australian and New Zealand Contingent of nurses now on active service in Egypt, writes from Alexandria to her sister in Hyuney, giving interesting details of the life in u .Military hospital:— "Khaki is everywhere, and the latest is that we girls (and there are about 1000 of us) have to go out in uniform. As the weather is now cooler 'i h not so bad having to wear uniform, and, after all, it is the proper thing to do. "About 150 girls of the Voliinturv Aid Detachment have arrived at Alexandria. We have 40 here, all look rather nice and seem sensible and keen. They are girls who have had about six months to a year of training in England, and are called voluntary aids, but they are not really that, for they drew a small salary, and all their expenses are paid. I have one of them here with me at night, and it seems just like old times in hospital with the probationers. They can be very useful making 'beds. ' wa-him; patients, giving drink's, etc We heard Ihe orderlies were to move on. hut that i* not so. It would never do. for there is too much cleaning to be done; I have two orderlies with me at night, both very good men. who never want me lo do anything, but you may be sure that with 7T enterics there is plenty of work for all. Inoculation must lie a -plendid safeguard: nearly all the cases are mild, and those who are really bad are mostly men who have i>o( lic-n inoculated. The result, are very dill'erent from what they were during the Boer war. when very few enterics recovered. The hospital is busv, but not with the seriously wounded, (here being really more medical nursing going on.

. . There are 17 sisters and If) V.A.I). -'iris on dnlv at night in the hospital. Half of lis go to -upper al a nme. It. is a bit of p-.eui.- and a scramble, but as it is active service no one InimK" USE FOR VOLUNTEER NURSES. STATEMENT R\ DR. VIVKS HEWITT. ,

Tn view of the t'ael that -nine people seem to have become lirml.v eoiiviiieed that no woman can possibly be of auv use in the hospitals in Egypt unle.s, she is a fully-trained nurse,' it may he Interesting to many to bear that Dr. Agnes Bennett, who has been working in the New Zealand Hospital at Cairo.'"expressed the highest praise of the volunteer women workers who assisted in the hospital there. Without their help, she said, they would have lost more lives, and many nurses would have broken ilcfvn under the strain. The volunteer helpers saved the nurses many little jobs which most be done for the patients, and for which it is not neccsnsry to have a fully trained nurse. "Without them," said Dr. Bennett, "they would never have got through the strain of the big rushes, which is the time when their help is needed. Before New Zealand sent any trained nurses to Egypt our men had to be attended to by nurses from other countries, and felt, as some of thein expressed it, that they were sponging on others, so now that we have the trained nurse there, we still allow the 'sponging' with regard to the volunteer helper, although there are many women willing to go and assist without remuneration."—Christehurch Sun.