THEY COUNT IN THOUSANDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 264, 14 July 1944, Page 20

THEY COUNT IN THOUSANDS

Red Cross Workers Make Surgical Dressings

N the winter of that unhappy year, 1939, some Auckland women were attending V.A.D. classes; on the evening of Sep‘tember 1, two days before the Empire declared war on Germany, some of them were sitting their transport examination- trembling from a worse cause than examinationitis and one week later, on Friday, September 8, six of them met for the first time as a sewing circle, led by Mrs. Dorothy Landon, to make pyjamas, slippers, hotwater bottle covers, and any other comforts they could think of to send to the military hospitals in England, Yesterday I went to see these sewing women. I found they have changed their name, their habitat, and their work, but they are still the same women (four of them — one is away ill, and another has gone into dn essential industry) with an additional 40 or more, and Mrs. Landon is still their leader. They are now known as the Surgical Section of the Comforts Committee of the Red Cross and they are supplied ‘with materials and patterns for their work by the Joint Council of the Order of

St. John and the New "Zealand Red Cross in Wellington; the St. John Surgical Section in Auckland is similarly supplied. Early this year, these women were burnt out of their home, and now they work in premises lent to the Red Cross by Sir Ernest Davis, chairman of the Auckland Provincial Committee of the Joint Council. It is an enormous room, much sub-divided by screens and curtains, and the path from one end to the other winds a tortuous way between machines, chairs, spindles, packing, cases and enormous piles of clothing. For this room is used temporarily by the Surgical Section two days a week, the Spinning Section another two days, and the Refugee Section (packing clothing for distribution to distressed people overseas) another two days. No More Pyjamas The members of the Surgical Section: no longer make pyjamas, slippers, etc.at least, not officially, and not in section time. What they do at home is a horse of a different colour, and a pretty substantial horse, too (for instance, I discovered that, as a private war effort, these women subscribe regularly for the welfare of a prisoner-of-war, whom they adopted through the Red Cross). During their first six months, they bought all their own materials, made their own patterns, and made the garments anywhere, at home, in ‘the group, or at friends’ houses. Since March, 1940, they have been officially organised. Under the leadership of Mrs. Landon and Mrs. L. Neville, they amalgamated with the Comforts Committee, of which Mrs. H. Lobb is the chairwoman, and have since had their patterns and materials distributed by the Comforts Committee after they are received from headquarters in Wellington, Mrs. Landon and Mrs. A. Warring are this year joint leaders of the section, and Miss V. Collard is deputy-leader. These 40 women (sometimes there are more of them) make all kinds of surgical bandages for use in hospitals at home and overseas. Great numbers, for instance, go to the Pacific, others to base hospitals in the Middle East, and others to military hospitals in New Zealand. They work at huge tables covered with sheets; for although everything is sterilised at the hospitals before use, it is necessary to keep all bandages and?dressings as clean as possible. I watched them working, and I was astonished at their speed; they told me that it takes about six minutes to make the smallest and simplest dressing, about 45 minutes to make the most complicated. Machines (most of which are lent or given) in a row along by the windows were whirring, a group of women at one table were cutting out; and another group stitching edges. The particular article being mass-produced at the moment was an anaesthetic mask. I looked at it with distaste, thinking of the last (I mean the /ast) time I wore one. An innocent-looking square of padded white material, a slit in the middle, tapes on the corners: and it takes about 13 minutes to make by mass production methods; they turn out from 50 to 60 a day. But watch them making dysentery pads and burns dressings. Flat pads of (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) gauzé and cotton wool, you’d say. But a dysentery pad (9" x 12") consists of a layer of gauze, a layer of cotton wool, a layer of "spaghetti" (white clean linen cut into the most minute fragments and strips); a layer of cotton wool and a layer of gauze, all neatly sewn into an envelope of gauze and evenly quilted. This is 45 minutes’. work, not counting the time taken by volunteer old ladies and school girls to cut the "spaghetti"

in their spare time. The burns dressings are bigger (22"’ x 14’), and are layers of waxed paper, cellucotton and gauze in a stitched gauze envelope. Dysentery pads made for the U.S: Forces are bigger (15" x 18%, and have a backing of 10 sheets of newspaper with layers of "spaghetti" or cotton waste, cotton wool, and gauze inside the gauze envelope. You'd think, just casually, that all this work would be fairly easy-just ripping gauze and sewing it into squares and oblongs and rollers with a tape or two sewn on the corners. But every piece of gauze has to be cut, not ripped, exactly on the straight. So the first step in the making of every dressing and bandage. is to draw threads so that the shapes may be cut on the straight. The thread-drawing is not a quick process; the cutting is still less quick. And then © there are the "whiskers’-the raw edge threads. No "Whiskers" Allowed "We're death on ‘whiskers,’" Mrs. Landon said. "Every article made is examined by someone other than the maker before it leaves. It doesn’t matter how good a worker is, we still examine everything-and we examine chiefly for raw edges. There mustn’t be a thread — or a raw edge anywhere, All tapes are hemmed at the ends, yes, even these long ones on the abdominal dressings; — they’re used for hanging a clip to, to make sure the dressing isn’t left inside the unfortunate patient; the final seams are done by hand; yes, they’re neat sewers — they should be, with all the practice they've had." Mrs. Landon told me some figures. For the 12 months ended March 31, 1944, the section made more than 7000 articles for New Zealand hospitals (here and overseas) as well as 12,600 articles for an American base hospital. These included more than 8000 battle dressings (the carefully padded and folded gauze dressing attached to a (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) calico cover with tie ends carried by every soldier), 300 dysentery pads, and | 3000 gauze dressings. At one time an urgent order from the American Red Cross requested that 800 yards of material be made into dressings-it was: more than 3000 dressings within two days. "Of course," Mrs, Landon said, "we started early and finished late to get that order through." Some of the materials (such as unbleached calico for- battle dressings) are so hard to cut or tear that scissors are constantly blunted and finger-nails ruined temporarily. This year the section has received help from city firms who have used power guillotines to cut the calico tails on the covers for battle dressings -- and when the section has been putting through 150 to 20@ yards of unbleached calico a day, this has been a very great help. When the pad is sewn to the ‘calico outer covering, the dressing is closely folded and wrapped in waxed paper ready to be sterilised. She’s Had Her Share of Wars Mrs. Landon was showing me pfles and piles of taped and folded and padded dressings, some to be used once and then burnt (such as the dysentery pads) and others to be sterilised again and again for many uses. Suddenly she interrupted the display: "Good morning, Mrs. McFerran," she said so very heartily that I thought I must be going to meet the dux of the school. I was, "This is Mrs. McFerran. She’s our oldest member. How old are you?" "Seventy-five," said. Mrs. McFerran, proudly. "And she’s one of our best and most constant workers,’ Mrs. Landon said. "Some days we come here at 8.30 and there she is sitting on the step waiting to be let in. But you really mustn’t do it, this cold weather, you know." Mrs. Landon didn’t seem to be very sure that she would be obeyed. Mrs. McFerran said" most firmly that she was very hearty. She looked it, in her white overall and her street hat firmly on her head. "T’ve had my share of wars," she said. "I was all through the last one; oh, I was in the camps and on hospital ships; and now there’s this one.",She delved in her bag and brought out an envelope with papers and keys and all sorts of things in it. ; "Here they are," she said. "My ribbons. Of course I’ve got my medals, too, they’re at home; I don’t carry them round with me. But these are my ribbons." I watched her working; 75 years had made her fingers wrinkled, but they were still firm and quick and deft; she turned a dressing inside out, patted it flat, smoothed the edges, and whipped along the seam much more quickly than I could have done it. She lives with her daughter, and haunts the Red Cross rooms. Some of the other women have homes to keep, husbands, children to look after; most of them belong to several sections, and spend all their spare time in the Red Cross work; one of them is in essential industry on shift work. For nearly five years they have been making dressings. "What will you do when the war ends?" I asked them. : ‘"Then we can start making dressing gowns and slippers for ordinary patients, I suppose," said one of them. :