FIRST AID

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 109, 4 November 1939, Page 6

FIRST AID

ORDER OF ST. JOHN

CAMPAIGN TO RAISE FUNDS

The Commandery of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem is shortly to conduct a campaign to raise funds to enable it to extend the wor,k of its organisation throughout the Dominion. This campaign is to be carried out with the assistance of Cinetone Productions, Limited, •« and Theatre Management, Limited,' and will be known as "The St. John Ambulance Centennial Baby Carnival." Full' details of the scheme will be announced later. The object of the appeal is to raise £50,000.

Since 1837 the ambulance department of the Order has issued 3,100,000 certificates, and in England alone attends annually an average of 750,000 cases. In New Zealand during the past 54. years it has issued some 50,000 certificates:" At1 all sports grounds members of the brigade are on hand to give first aid to those who suffer injury. During the winter months cases of this kind have averaged approximately 2000 ■ every Saturday afternoon. The St. John motor ambulances operate from 17 different centres, and more are needed. The district nurses of St. John are aIV trained women and are engaged in nursing the sick and poor; " . In order to avoid overlapping in the various types of work carried' on •by St. John and other organisations, it was agreed, after a conference .with the Health Department - and the. New Zealand Red Cross Society, that the Order of St. John should have the exclusive privilege of undertaking certain activities. These are the instruction of the public in first aid, home nursing and sickroom hygiene, brigade work on sports fields, ambulance transport, blood transfusion, and district bedside nursing. Success in the forthcoming carnivalwill enable the St. John Ambulance to extend its work of teaching first aid.