HOSPITAL UNITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 October 1941, Page 3

HOSPITAL UNITS

VALUABLE WORK IN EGYPT N.Z. FORCES. GOOD REPUTATION ESTABLISHED (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) CAIRO, September 9. The value of the work done by New Zealand hospital units since the first contingent of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. arrived in the Middle East cannot be over-esti-mated. In conditions which are abnormal in almost every way, they have overcome seemingly insurmountable difficulties, every day coping with some fresh problem and by their untiring and' careful service building up a reputation among other branches of the force of which the medical corps as a whole may well be proud. Not only among New Zealanders, but also with all other allied forces in the Middle East, have they established a name for themselves which will long be remembered. Our field ambulances when serving in the desert last year did sterling work, treating large numbers of New Zealand and other Imperial troops for complaints ranging from a mild attack of dysentery to serious shrapnel wounds. Meanwhile our general hospitals were giving a service which has had much to do with the resultant high state of good health among members of the force. The campaign in Greece again brought our hospitals and ambulance units to the fore, and the unstinted and prompt service which they rendered to friend and enemy alike further added to that fine reputation, the foundations of which had been laid in the desert sands of Egypt. When the campaign was over and the war-tired troops poured through the gangways, safe at a Middle East port, there were many who paid warm tributes to the grand work done by the New Zealand medical sei-vices in the field —by doctors, nurses, stretcher bearers, orderlies. and all those whose duty it is to attend to the sick and wounded. Many were the acts of heroism while performing these merciful duties under the blast of the greatest blitz any army had heretofore known or experienced. PRICE PAID. One New Zealand hospital unit, which had already seen service in the United Kingdom and in Egypt earned particularly high praise for the work they accomplished in such trying conditions. They paid the price in both personnel and equipment, but arrived back ready to. re-form at a moment s notice. The other day saw them reestablished and re-equipped, proud of their record and prepared for all eventualities, parading at their desert camp before the chief of the New Zealand medical services in the Middle East.

It is well known and generally ac- i cepted that soldiers more than any other types of people need an occasional change of environment and duty. Members of medical units are not excepted. As a result, a general hospital which has seen service in the Middle East at the same location —previously a luxurious tourist hotel for a considerable period —is now being restaffed by members of another New Zealand hospital unit. In handing over to the new staff the officer commanding the hospital has reviewed in retrospect and briefly the conditions which the staff has had to face and the excellent work which it has done. “When we took over we were all amateurs,” he said, “the only ones who stepped into their real profession being the Sisters, and there were many points which even they had to learn to conform to Army war administration. Once these had been mastered they one and all under the leadership of their matron settled down to their real job of tending the sick and wounde'd with all the efficiency that has become traditional with New Zealand nurses and with the N.Z.A.N.S. in particular. “It took medical officers many weeks to become acquainted with the ways and means, channels of communication, adapting our therapeutic ideas -and demands to the supplies available to ah Army hospital on active service, particularly in a sphere where supplies were of necessity almost always short,” he continued.

CLERICAL RETURNS. The report goes on to state that it took considerable time for medical men to become used to the many clerical returns they were required to make, but as time passed the reason for these returns became more and more obvious. Now it was realised by all that with a turn-over of patients that exceeded by far that of civil hos- . pitals—of patients, more over, that t were “here today and home tomor- ' row,” and those sole economic future < might be altered by the care with, which their cases had been recorded while under treatment in the hospital, the clerical side of medical work was of considerable importance. It had thus taken on a new interest and was no longer regarded as a burden. “Of the work of the other ranks I cannot speak too highly,” added the commanding officer. “Non-commission-ed officers and men have worked carefully and consistently throughout. Whether on the clerical side during a rush period, in the quartermaster’s department when asked to cope with a heavy influx of patients, in the wards when extra beds crowded rooms and corridors and neither food nor passenger lifts would function, in the kitchen . when the shade temperature showed 118 Fahrenheit and the cooks normally providing for 600 patients had to prepare meals for close on a thousand, there was always the same response. If there was a job to be done one could rely upon its being tarried through.

“It is with mixed feelings that we prepare to leave the scene of our first endeavours,” the officer concludj ed. “Although mistakes aplenty must have beeii made in the prevailing conditions, we shall march out with the feeling that we have contributed, at any rate in some small degree, to the well-being and cure of many hundreds of our New Zealand soldiei’S.” -• This is the spirit which characterises the work and endeavours of 'New Zealand’p medical services overseas. Motivated by it they must assuredly enhance the splendid reputation which they already have built up during thbir sojourn in the Middle East.