HOME FROM EGYPT

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21373, 18 March 1941, Page 3

HOME FROM EGYPT

ARMY NURSE ON LEAVE ALL-NEW ZEALAND HOSPITAL Sister K. G. Hall, who returned to New Zealand with the last party of soldiers invalided home from the Middle East, is spending the remaining weeks of her furlough in Wellington, after a busy fortnight in Auckland and the far north. Fifteen months ago, says the Auckland Star, Sister Hall sailed with the members of the First Echelon to an unknown destination, somewhere in the East. For six months she was stationed at a British hospital, later being transferred to the No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital, run entirely by New Zealanders—doctors, nurses, and orderlies, for New Zealand troops. The sisters have regular hours for duty, with two days off a month. The hospital has accommodation for 500 to 600 patients, who receive the individual care and attention they would in any such institution in peacetime. Although food rations are enforced upon members of the staff, a normal healthy diet is maintained without any difficulty, and an abundant Supply of fruit and vegetables is made available to them. In the wards as necessary a part of their equipment as a thermometer, is a “fly-swisher,” which is used continuously, and serves as a fan to counteract the terrific head as well as a disturber to the common house-fly. Nearby Native Quarter Within reasonably close distance to their base is the native quarter, where all the famous scents of the East are made from flowers grown in huge gardens out in the desert. The buds are distilled by hand—a secret method the Egyptians still claim to be known only by themselves—then treated scientifically before the liquid is placed in small containers. When a purchase is made, a native “receptionist” proffers his advice as to which is the most suitable perfume, his decision being made after a close scrutiny of the customers’ eyes. Although there are now comparatively few European residents among the cosmopolitan population, there is plenty of entertainment for those attached to the hospials, films and concerts proving the main attraction when off-duty hours are not long i enough to allow travel to other places 1 of interest.