EPIDEMIC DANGER

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 December 1940, Page 9

EPIDEMIC DANGER

RED CROSS WORK IN BRITAIN. [PER press association.] WELLINGTON, December 7. The Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the Red Cross Society has received a letter from Dr. Harold Gillies, New Zealand Red Cross Commissioner in England, in which he says that casualties in air raids in London are being dealt with very satisfactorily under a comprehensive and, so far as he has been able to investigate, efficient emergency medical service scheme, but a bigger problem has yet to be faced. “The epidemic season is now upon us,” he says, “and conditions of living are so appalling for so many that before long the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John war organisation will have an immense task to undertake. The organisation has been asked to provide 20,000 beds to deal with military and civilian casualties and sick.” Dr. Gillies mentions that the Joint Council has voted £250,000 as a nucleus for a Red Cross and St. John Air Raid Distress Fund for the United Kingdom. This amount has been transferred from the Lord Mayor’s original Red Cross Fund, which is entirely separate from the Lord Mayor’s Fund for air raid victims in London, and is for use throughout the United Kingdom. Some of the £25,000 sent io England by the Joint Council in |New Zealand may be included in the £250,000 mentioned as the nucleus of the United Kingdom Fund..