THE CASUALTY WARD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1926, Page 5

THE CASUALTY WARD.

AT THE AUCKLAND HOSPITAL TREATING MINOR CASES. A BUSY MOUSING. A small room, measuring somewhere about 14ft by 12ft, on the ground floor of the main building of the Auckland Hospital and overlooking the Waitemata is the casualty ward. Well, perhaps it is not a ward, but merely a ioom where all the essentials to treat minor cases are provided, cases which are not serious enough, to warrant the sufferers being allotted a bed. To reach, the casualty room you enter by the main door and walk along the ' corridor till you come to that portion where long wooden seats run along each wall. On the left is the casualty room, and a glance inside shows a gentleman dressed in a long white coat, similar j to those worn by an umpire at a cricket : match. He is Dr. J. Mark, the medico in charge of the ward. Close beside him with enamel basins of hot water in thoir hands are two uniformed ladies, Nurses Dempsey and Ryan. The three are the staff and as busy as the proverbial bee. "Business" was booming this morning when a "Star" reporter dropped in. It was still booming when he left a couple of hours later. Taking a seat in the corridor the reporter "took in" the patients. There were nearly 40 of them, and a mixed lot at that. An old chap, possibly a grandfather, perhaps a great grandfather, had a seat in a corner. He seemed all right and as sound as a bell, but there must have been something wrong else he would not be there. On the end of one of the seats a man of middle-age was bathing a hand in a basin of water the while he joked with the patient next him. Two girls about eighteen years of age wander in, each carrying an arm in. a black scarf, which is thrown around the neck to make a sling. There is a young man with a foot heavily bandaged, another with strips of adhesive plaster on [ his forehead and cheek, but the majority are noticed with bandaged hands. | Children there are many. They too have been falling and knocking themselves : about, and have come long to have their injuries dressed. In a box attached to the wall, a box similar to that to be found in tram cars, and which contain announcements of performances by the Municipal Band, are metal discs containing numbers ranging from one to 20. As the patient arrives he or she takes a number from the box before occupying a seat in the corridor. This ensures '"first come first served," because the patients are treated in the order of numbering. The first patient

takes number one, the second number two, and so on. Each morning a start is made at eight; o'clock, and when everything is in readiness in the little room where all the -necessities for the treatment and dressing of injuries are. ready at hand, one of the two nurses calls out ■'Number one." And "Number one," with hand or foot bandaged, at once enters. "How's the hand?" asks the doctor or nurse. '"Doing all righV or "a bit sore," answers the patient, and the bandage is quickly removed. The trouble is examined, and in a couple of minutes the patient 13 on his way home, the arm, leg, or whatever it happens to be, washed, treated, and dressed. And so it goes on, hour alter hour. Whether it is an injured hand, leg, foot, anything at all, Dr. Mark and his tare nurses carry on the good work, always with a word of cheer to the patients. The average number of patients treated daily would be about SO. and from eight o'clock till eleven the staff is kept very busy. i Business then eases off, and, though patients are treated at all times during ! the day. few come along after noon. A small fee is charged for dressings, but Dr. Mark is not a bad sort if the opinion of more than one patient this morning counts for anything. "If you can't afford to pay, he won't be hard" on you/ said a man who was nursing a hand. '"He's a good sort, and so are the nurses."