RUSSIA'S REFUGEES.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15567, 17 April 1916, Page 10

RUSSIA'S REFUGEES.

THE BRITISH WOMEN'S HOSPITAL. NEW ZEALAND HELP APPRECIATED. (t'ltOM Ot : It OW.V fOItItESPONDKN'T.) LONDON, February 20. Tlic British Women's Maternity Unit for Russia, of 14 Great Smith street, London, is highly gratified at the amount of assistance already received from the Dominions. The people of New Zealand have sent quantities of clothing, and the touching little messages tacked to the garments have been much appreciated. The Unit was organised by the.National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. and left London a fortnight ago for Petrograd. The medical women in charge are Dr. Mabel May and Dr. Beatrice Coxon, two of ,tlie heroines of the Serbian Retreat, and the Unit includes:—An administrator (Miss Moberlev, Lady Margaret Hall Oxford), five nurses, an assisstant-uurse (Miss Ruth Holden, M.A., Harvard), a scientific research Follow of Newnham College, Cambridge, a sanitary officer (Miss Anno Hutchinson, of York), a nursing organiser (Miss Violetta Thurstan, who worked last year under the Russian Red Cross), and a secretary (Miss lvnight). They will undertake the management of the Maternity Hospital in Petrograd, and when that is once established the I 1 nit hopes to open an out-patients' department for 'the treatment of minor ailments and for the relief of distress. Already large stores of equipment are in readiness for this department. The Unit took voluntary contributions of 1$ ton of clothing as well as li ton of drugs, including milk foods for infants, and 13cwt of bandages. But the ori ganisers of the enterprise look beyond this one centre of activity. They "contemplate other districts where* thenwork is needed perhaps even more urgently than in the Russian metropolis. The need is infinite, but the development of , the work can only be undertaken if justified by a continuous stream «1" funds. The claims of (I'atcliina 6i town some thirty miles south of Petrograd). for example, have made themselves felt. Help is sorely needed in that district and would be welcomed whole-heartedly by the Russian authorities. Dire suffering is said to exist there among the children. In a barrack which shelters some hundreds of little ones, many of them —victims of the hardships of their exodus—are falling an easy prev to infectious disease, to lung trouble, and fo fever. Each day takes its toll of the young lives. The next step contemplated by the British women organisers is r<> establish a large nursery there. Iv is for such children and their mothers that a special appeal is now being made to the people of the British Empire, and it is confidently expected that the generous aid already offered i for the tirst Unit will be more than ' doubled for further work as the story i ot distress becomes known throughout 1 tlie British Dominions. j ] ===== i