FIELD DRESSINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 118, 14 November 1942, Page 8

FIELD DRESSINGS

WOMEN'S VALUABLE WAR

WORK

Three hundred miles of bandages made, fitted, tinned, and boxed is the task undertaken by a willing band of voluntary workers, supervised by Mrs. B. J. Dudley, in a workroom in Lower Hutt.

Experience in previous wars has demonstrated the danger of sepsis from even small wounds, particularly in tropical countries. A barbed wire 'tear, a scratch from a thorn '• bush, or a mosquito bite may mean the loss of a limb or even, death.

Now, however, every overseas soldier will carry in his tunic a small flat tin measuring some two inches by one and a half inches by half an inch thick, which contains three bandages four feet six inches long and one and a half inches wide, on which is a rectangular patch two inches by one and a half inches, impregnated with sulphanilanide. In recent years sulphanilanide has saved thousands of lives, notably p.neumonia cases, of which up to recently the base hospital in Egypt had not lost a single case. The matter of organising the making of the bandages is in the hands of the Joint Council of St. John and the Red Cross Society, which requested Mrs. Dudley, one of its members, to undertake the organising work. A room was secured and a staff arranged from St. John members, members of the W.W.S.A. nursing division, the Townswomen's Guild, senior girls from the Hutt Valley High School, and a large number of Mrs. Dudley's personal friends to work three sessions each day. Fifteen ladies comprise the staff for one session. WORK IN PAIRS. Generally working in pairs, the operators cut the bandages into exact lengths, attach the rectangle of impregnated lint, roll the bandages in special machines to form a flat pack, trim and sew the rolls, and, lastly, pack three bandages, covered with nonabsorbent paper, in each tin, which has instructions pasted within. Finally the tins are sealed and packed in cases ready for transport.

In the past ten days 6000 tins hav.e been completed; the immediate demand is for 45,000 tins. A record of 1000 tins a day was recently established, but as this is the only depot organised so far it is still a far cry to the completion of 175,000 tins, the ultimate objective.