British Nurses In China

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 270, 11 August 1938, Page 5

British Nurses In China

Review Of Conditions By Visiting Matron Of Hangchow Mission Hospital

J-JOSPITAL life in war-ridden China to-day is almost as hazardous for those who would nurse the sick and wounded as for the victims themselves. Miss Bar grove, matron of the Church Missionary Society s hospital at Hangchow for the past 15 years, who is visiting Wellington, has some interesting stories to tell. A recent cablegram from Shanghai stated that I 03 Chinese soldiers had been forcibly removed from the mission hospital.

qPHE mission hospital at Hangchow is X the largest of its kind in China, ami among its large staff of Cldnese doctors, nurses and trainees are four British doctors and live British nurses, said Miss Bargrove to “The Dominion.’’ The main hospital of about 250 beds is situated in the city and deals with medical, maternity and surgical cases. The supplementary leper hospital and tuberculosis sanitoria are outside the city and are about "half an hour by rickshaw” from the main hospital. “Fortunately the Japanese have their own hospital in Hangchow,” said Miss .Bargrove. “Our own staff of Chinese were wonderfully loyal, but we were' terrified that they would have to suffer the agony of nursing the Japanese soldiers. All over the world nurses have had to care for enemy soldiers, and our nurses would have been prepared to nurse them but it would have been hard.” . Tile hospital’s income was cut down to practically nothing after the war began, she continued. The shopping and residential quarters of Hangchow were quite dead and the majority of the people treated were from the huge refugee camps set up in the city. These people had no money. Many of the patients entered the hospital as the result of the injuries they received at the hands of Japanese soldiers. Women had jumped from great heights to escape from them. Many were in hospital with fractured spines. Others had been terribly gashed by the soldiers who had used their swords ruthlessly. At the request of the Chinese Government a boarding school next to tue hospital was converted overnight into a 500-bed hospital for the exclusive use of Chinese soldiers. Just before the Japanese entered Hangchow on December 24 about 250 of the soldiers were evacuated from the city, also at the request of the Government. On the afternoon of December 22 the bridge spanning the Chieng T’ang River and connecting Hangchow with Shaohing Ningpo, and the country leading into the southern province of Fukien, was blown up. The explosion shook the whole city and even affected the hospital, which is about three miles from the river. After this no ore could leave the city, as the opposing camps were situated on either side of the river. When the Japanese took over Hangchow they made a register of all the remaining soldiers in the military hospital. These men were then put under the control of the hospital authorities, who found that, as 'the men began to get well again, they became increasingly difficult to guard, as they had no outlet for their energies. Though they were put on parole, one of their number had attempted to escape, and much trouble resulted. The Japanese authorities were very courteous in dealing with the situation, however.

Chinese Removed from Hospital. ■REFERRING to a recent cablegram which stated that Japanese forcibly entered and removed 103 wounded Chinese from the British missionary hospital at Hangchow and took them away on armed lorries, Miss Bargrove said she could not understand the use of the word “forcibly.” At the time she left for New Zealand the medical superintendent, Dr. S. D. Sturton, and the bishop of the Chekiang diocese, Rt. Rev. John Curtis, were endeavouring to come to an agreement with the Japanese regarding the releasing of the men from the restricted area of

the school. Possibly the message meant that they had been removed and interned at some other place.

Miss Bargrove outlined some of the difficulties connected with the organisation of the hospital. Though their income from patients was reduced to practically nothing they obtained grants from the Chinese relief fund organised by the Lord Mayor of London. Money was also received from the Chinese Government, which contributed enough to care for the 500 soldiers in the hospital for a period of five months. The Japanese were very fond of milk and had rounded up all the buffaloes on which the Chinese largely depend for their milk supply) they could find. These provided milk for their own soldiers. As a result many refugees had asked the hospital authorities to care for their cattle. Large supplies of dry grass were provided. Medical supplies were also difficult to procure. Apart from a few small consignments brought by hand, five months elapsed after the taking of Hangchow before a large supply was brought up from Shanghai. This arrived the day she left for New Zealand.