HOSPITAL HORRORS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 183, 3 August 1900, Page 2

HOSPITAL HORRORS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

THE BUJtDETT COUTTS CILUIGUS,

DEADLY DENS OF TYPHOID

LOXDOX, June 29

From lime io time reports from sick and woundeel "Tommies" in South Afirea have come to hand which cast doubt upon the comfortingl assurances'of the army authorities and casual globe-trotting medicos who have visited the Cape that whatever discomforts lie suffers in the field whilst sound in wind and limb, the moment he is put out of action by flisease or wounds the private soldier has every attention paid him by competent doctors and nurses. l ret in spite of the -tales of sufferers we have, till recently, rested content that our Army Medical Department and its accessories has been fully capable of dealing1 with the vast army of sick and wounded at any rate after they have been removed from the immediate theatre of war. There we knew the conditions to be such that sufferers could not be treated as we should like them to be, but it never occurred to the majority of stay-at-homes that within a mile of Bloemfontein long- weeks after Lord lloberts had taken possession of that town scoi'es and hundreds of typhoid patients were huddled together in bell tents, with nothing1 but a blanket or a waterproof sheet twixl them and the bare ground, and no nurses in attendance save a few hospital orderlies, the majority of whom had probably never handled a ease of typhoid or attended to a wounded man in their lives. Yet to this state of things' Mr \V. Burdett Coutts, the "Times" commissioner, swears, and reading his letters on the subject one cannot repress the feeling- that there are some people in this world who should meet with punishments not recognised in ordinary -criminal law. Typhoid and dysentery -were recognised at the outbreak of the war as likely to account for their hundreds where bullets acounted for scores. They were known to be the scourges of South Africa, but apparently it was no one's duty to make any special preparations for the Victims of this deadly enemy. The consequences may be estimated by a glance at the casualty returns from which it will be seen at once that typhoid and kindred diseases have slain more British soldiers than have died from all other causes. A few excerpts from Mr Coutts' narrative will suffice to show the reason for ilhe shocking mortality among soldiers attacked by enteric and dysentery. Discoursing of matters at Bloetnfontoin he says:— ".For a month after our occupation of Bloemfontein, where it will be remembered our forces remained seven weeks before the general advance, the hospital accommodation there ■consisted of two kinds—(7) the field hospital situated in the various swamps about the town; and (3) the extemporised hospitals In the town itself in various public buildings, commandeered for the purpose. These 3a;t|ter," according to

the official list, contained about 700 beds. The sick were given as 2200, which, with 700 in the town, would leave some 1500 in the field hospitals. We will deal with the latter establishments first. An ordinary field hospital contains 100 beds—a facon de parler, because it has no beds. When stretchers are available, they are sometimes used as beds in the* tents. The theory of a field hospital is that it is to be always moving with troops. When troops make a long stay in one place, it may be vised as a "stationary" hospital, and its equipment should be improved for that purpose. It is an axiom laid down by an accepted authority that "if the hospital is to be long in occupation every effort should be made to raise the patients off the ground." Ten weeks' existence of this hospital in one spot is certainly a period satisfying the condition; but no attempt was ever made to supply beds, or even mattresses for it. Situated within a mile of Bloemfontein, nurses could have been accommodated in it just as well as in a "general" or "stationary" hospital, where they are allowed. There were never any nurses in it, or, indeed, in any field hospital. The distinction between a field hospital used as this was, and a stationary or general hospital, is rendered merely nominal by strategic seeiuity, permanence in situ, and enlarged accommodation. In these respects some of the field hospitals around Eloemfontein differed in no way from general hopitals, and least of all in the necessity for proper nursing. But hardly any nurses at all came to Bloernfontein for a month after our occupation of it. There are four medical officers, two ward-masters, 14 trained nursing orderlies, and 0 supernumeraries—for 10Q patients. The field hospital in question, before it arrived in Bloemfontein, had been broken :in4o two, one-half having been sent in another direction, leaving this hospital with half its equipment and staff. It should consequently have accommodated 50 patients. On my first visit to it (April 0) there were 250 in its tents, 90 of whom were typhoid cases. More than a fortnight later another visit disclosed the following state of things. With no further equipment than two marquees and a few bell-tents, no addition of staff or anything else, there were 31G patients, of whom half were typhoids. Their condition was almost indescribable. The tents were belltents such as were mentioned in a former lettei", as affording sleeping- accommodation for from 6 to S orderlies when working and in sound health, In many of these tents there were ten typhoid cases lying closely packed together, the dying- against the convalescent, the man in his "crisis" pressed against the man hastening to it. There was not room to step between them. Think of this, you who know the sort of nursing a typhoid patient requires. With no beds or mattresses, and only 42 stretchers in the whole hospital, it followed that 274 patients had to be on the earth. There .was a great scarcity of blankets, and no patient could have more than one, with a waterproof sheet, between his body and the ground. The ground is hard as stone, and at night the temperatxire falls to freezing point. Besides other deficiencies which cannot be described, there were no sheets or pil-low-cases, or pretence of bed linen of any kind; only the coarse rug grated against the sensitive skjn burning with fever. The heat of these tents in the mid-day sun .was overpowering, their odours sickening. Men lay with their faces covered with flies in black clusters, too weak to raise a hand to brush them off, trying; in vain to dislodge them by painful twitching of the features. There was no one to do it for them. Seventeen orderlies had come with, or been raised for, the

half-section of this field hospital; ten had been taken from it. the number being- made up from the Bearer Company; but they had other duties to perform than brushing flies off patients' faces. At night there were not enough to prevent those in the delirious stage from getting- up and wandering- about the camp hull-naked in the bitter cold. fa one tent, where some slept tuul others iay with eyes open and staring, a case of "perforation" was groaning out his life huddled against his neighbour on the ground. Men had not only to see, but often to feel, others die. There is no need to pile on the agony but worse remains behind which must be told. Therefore I will pass over an incidental visit to the hospital after a heavy rain, when many of the patients—typhoid lifv<i increased —were to be seen lying' Miree inches deep in mud, and come to my last visit, four days ago, on my way down to the front. The chief medical officer had been changed; from all H'ports this one was its painstaking as the last, lie told me that at one time his patients had increased to 4DG! Three hundred of these were typhoids. The few trained orderlies hud been mostly taken away, in their place were ~"> untrained and ignorant privates from an infantry regiment, most of whom were themselves "convalescents," to do the whole of the nursing. The medical stall' remained always at three. The patients here were within 34 of the number (.120) allotted to a general hospital. A general hospital has '-() medical men, 78 trained nursing orderlies, .'27 untrained privates, and nine nurses. Here was this hospital, crowded with typhoid, left to three doctors, :3.") untwined privates, and no nurses. With one more incident, graver than all the rest the dark histr.ry of a field hospital at IJloeinfontefn must, close. On the occasion of my last visit the hospital had been mostly emptied, as it was to move on to the front. In the course of thi:: process 20 of the worst cases were reu.oved to a more permanent hospital a mile and n half ofl!. llow were they taken? They were lifted out of their tents and put into rough cx^vajygff.nfi —all typhoids, and many rf them cangerousiy ill —and then jolted fifross the veldt, which in this place is much broken by spruits and gul'ieo. On." tn.«e was in a state of "hemorrhage" i\hen moved. The order en me to evacuate the hospital; the medical oflVf-r Lad no choice but to obey; hlior? were no ambulances. In three day-: four of ihow ;>0 w^-e dead men.'

TV.c fry of the aiuyv citizen win Vc

•Vlio Is to blame?" Personally., I'm i.iuch :ifraifl that no enquiry will eh- p n rl'.''';rU answer "o Ibis cihl?.*!lmi 11, seems to be a feature of the British "War Office system (hot it is impossible to localize the blame for any serious blunder.