N.Z. NURSES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 75, 25 September 1942, Page 4

N.Z. NURSES

"JUSTLY PROUD OF THEM"

In the editorial column of a copy of the "N.Z.E.F:. Times," which arrived in the Dominion this week from the Middle East, a tribute is paid to the service being given by the New Zealand nurses. The editorial was written by Lieutenant-Colonel F. Waite, overseas commissioner for the National Patriotic Fund Board, who has retained his association with the paper since its early days when the Patriotic Fund Board guaranteed its establishment expenses. "Soldiers appreciate to the full the. great devotion of our -nurses," says the editorial. "The doctor's skill is of little avail without nursing. And to a soldier a long way from home the presence of the nurse is a greater tonic than any medicine. In normal times European women who live In this enervating climate find it necessary to go away in the heat of the summer. Although our nurses' hours are regulated as well as the exigencies of the service allow, there is not much leave for them when our forces 'are in action. . . . We are justly proud of the New Zealand women who are serving in the Middle East, and all members of the Second N.Z.E.F. will I subscribe to the sentiments of the New i Zealander. who recently wrote home:

"'What a great job these women do! The heat of an Egyptian summer is the very devil, and some of these girls have now been here for three summers. Every soldier in the Middle East w«>uld vote for a George Cross for each of these girls, and a double pension when the war is over. And the girls who served in Greece and Crete, Helwan and Helmieh, Garawla and Aleppo, should get free permanent waves, silk stockings, lipstick, chocolates, and new hats for ever and ever.' "