A Moving Appeal

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 103, 2 May 1941, Page 5

A Moving Appeal

A moving appeal for help in running the only large maternity hospital left in London Ijas been received in Auckland by the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children, from the acting-secretary superintendent of the Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital. The letter states that months of raids have left Queen Charlotte’s Hospital the only large one of its kind in London. It cares for the soldiers’ sailors and airmen’s wives, who, unable for family reasons to evacuate London, areas brave as their husbands. The nurses, 'in steel helmets, often reach them amid bombs and gunfire, driving with anti-shrapnel mattresses on the roof. “Not only do we deliver them in their homes or in the new building the old one having been hit by a bomb —but we aid those bombed out, with blankets and other comforts, and also help the new-born child for five years,” the letter continues. “These servicemen’s wives cost us £l2 for their two weeks in hospital, as they can contribute nothing but a precious new life.” •

Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, the letter continues, is the Empire’s oldest maternity hospital and in every war since Nelson’s days it has cared for the wives of Britain’s fighting men. These included 5000 in 1914-18. Queen Elizabeth is the sixth queen of England to be the hospital’s patron in 200 years, and she recently visited the mothers there and had a friendly word with them. “Please will you be a godfather from overseas to one of these servicemen’s babes by sending me a cheque?” the letter concludes.