MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 138, 8 March 1945, Page 6

MEDICAL WORK IN CHINA

Friends’ Ambulance Unit HELPING VICTIMS OF WAR WITH JAPAN

How the band of international volunteers known us the Friends’ Ambulance Unit is carrying medical aid to the soldier and civilian victims of the war in China, where life is cheap and doctors are handicapped by conditions that are hardly conceivable to people who know only western civilization, is told by Mr. AV. Jenkins, a member of the unit, who is visiting New Zealand. The Friends’ Ambulance Unit is a Quaker organization which has been working in China nearly four years. The work of ’-he unit is divided into two sections, tbe transport of medical supplies and the operation of medical field units in the Yunan-Burina area. Its transport system covers 2300 miles from Kunming to. near the Inner Mongolia border, serving 12 provinces, one of them, Szechwan, being larger than France. Before the recent Japanese occupations it extended from Rangoon to the Inner Mongolia border, and by truck, rail and river to Foochow on the coast opposite Formosa. It has one permanent hospital and five mobile field hospitals.

Exclusively for Chinese.

“The medical teams do civilian and military work and are right up w’fth the Chinese Army,” said Mr. Jenkins. “We recently received a commendation from the divisional commander, of the American forces in Yunan in which special notice was given to our mobility and our ability to work in terrain inaccessible to the larger medical units. AVe work for the Chinese Government through the National Health Administration and the Chinese Red Cross. AVe speak Chinese. We eat with the Chinese and do not have extra foreign rations. We sleep with them and live with them, and work exclusively for the Chinese. “Maintenance of the members is. supported by contributions from Britain, America and Canada, while the Chinese Government finances the transport work. The membership is international, containing Brtsh, Ohnese, Amercans, Canadians and Indians. There are 118 members. AVe have members seconded from the British Red Cross, and, with employees, we total 200.” The unit owned 40 trucks, of which 27 were operating, the remainder being “canabalized, or robbed to provide spare parts for those in operation. The fuel was mainly charcoal, but a few ran on bean oil, and one convoy in Kansu used gasoline produced there. The personnel and equipment enabled the organization to give all the treatments needed by the victims of war.

Soldiers Crawl to Hospital. Insufficiency of trained medical personnel resulted in both civilians and soldiers of China suffering incredible hardships amid the horrors of war, and there was desperate need for such work as the Friends’ Ambulance Unit did, said Mr. Jenkins. There were no ambulances fitted with stretchers for the transport of wounded. Chinese soldiers came by bullock cart, on stretchers, walking and crawling, often ten days after they had been wounded. Many died on their way to get their wounds attended. It compared tragically with the modern America technique of prompt first aid on the field and evacuation by air to hospital. The soldiers were often strangers to the district and could hardly speak the dialect, and would have neither money nor rations. They therefore had to subsist on the generosity of the villagers in the areas through which they dragged themselves to hospital. Clothed in ligh cotton uniforms, they suffered from the cold when during the monsoon rains they could not light fires. By the tune they arrived at a hospital they were often in such a state that they could not respond to drugs. In addition to malnutrition, ignorance and superstition obstructed the doctors. Admirable People.

“In spite of this China is carrying on a social and political revolution in the midst of the worst war she has ever had, and doing it -in what is, m the modern sense, almost total blockade, said Mr. Jenkins.” She is carrying on in conditions in which no western nation would ever conceive of being , able to carry on. The young educated Chinese are refusing lucrative posts to go abou the country doing mass education ana public health work. They go about in light cotton suits, enting the simple food of the farmers and peasants, thougli some may have been educated in foreign universities. In spite of the obstacles, geographical, psychological and political I have a firm belief that these fine people will bring China to its long hopec for renaissance. When that, occurs the federated states' of China will have advanced beyond the stage, at winch Europe, divided, is in today.’ Mr. Jenkins, who is travelling under the authority of the B’ritish Red Cross, has been to Australia and will go from New Zealand to the United States of America, Canada and London. The. purpose of his visit to New Zealand is to "ivo the latest information of wartime conditions in China and to interest. New Zealand in the work of the Friends Ambulance Unit. The British members of the unit return home after four years service, and it i s hoped (hat the lacific countries will be able to provide support in men and money.