HOSPITAL SHIP

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21373, 18 March 1941, Page 6

HOSPITAL SHIP

POST OF MATRON MISS E. M. LEWIS APPOINTED (By Telegraph.—Press Association) I BLENHEIM, Tuesday Miss E. M. Lewis, matron of the Wairau Hospital, has been appointed matron of the New Zealand hospital ship Maunganui. Miss Lewis has been granted six months’ leave of absence by the Marlborough Hospital Board at the request of the Government. Miss Lewis had a lengthy period of nursing service in the Great War. On the outbreak she joined the Red Cross in England and sailed for Egypt in the New Zealand hospital ship, Marama, late in 1915. She was appointed to the staff of the Anglo-American hospital at Cairo, and later transferred to the 27th General Hospital and posted to the hospital ship Assaye. She made several trips between Suez, India and East Africa. Miss Lewis was the only New Zealand sister attached to the unit.

Proceeding to Palestine late in 1917, she was attached to the 45th stationary hospital at Elarish and later she served on the No. 56 Hospital Train, running between Jerusalem and Kantara. Miss Lewis was attached to the General Hospital at Alexandria when the armistice was signed and remained there until 1919, when she re-joined the Hospital Ship Assaye. She completed her military nursing at Trentham in 1921, when she was appointed to the Wairau Hospital.