FREE IRON LUNGS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1939, Page 4

FREE IRON LUNGS

GIFTS BY LORD NUFFIELD. EXTENSION BEYOND EMPIRE. The offer by Lord Nuffield of free iron lungs to every hospital in the Empire hase been extended to include hospitals in foreign countries. In addition to Australia, where more than 150 have been ordered, Hong Kong, Tanganyika, the Falkland Islands, the Seychelles Islands, Lagos, Nyasaland, Barbadoes, Kumasi and Sarawak have taken advantage of the offer. Many hospitals outside the Empire, facing emergencies, have telephoned or cabled to Morris Motors at Cowley pleading for lungs. And to Paris, Nice. Algiers, Finland, China, New York, they have gone by special aeroplane, special train or special boat. “It meant the saving of the life of some child struggling for breath,” an official of the company said this week, “and nationality was beside 'the point.” A large workshop at Cowley has been laid out for mass production at the rate of 50 a week. At one end arrive sets of wooden panels from the sawmills. Carpenters (formerly motorbody finishers) assemble them and they pass to the spray-paint section. From there they go to the finishing bay, where chromium-plated fittings, rubber seals, and equipment are attached. One iron lung is always kept ready packed to answer emergency calls. Such a call was received recently from Uganda. The apparatus was rushed to Southampton and taken all the way by air. It arrived three days laterjust three hours too late.