HOSPITAL HORRORS.

Northern Advocate, 9 December 1916, Page 1

HOSPITAL HORRORS.

A NURSE'S STORY,

A SERIOUS INDICTMENT,

LONDON, October 12

"I don't care where they send me so long as it's not to Mesopotamia," was a remark made to me by a youngster who had seen something of life east of Suez before he joined the Army. He had been up the Persian Gulf in a steamer that was not particular where she put in so long as there was cargo to be picked up, and knew something of the discomforts existing in that region even for a man "in the pink," as he expressed it. He had a shrewd idea, also, that the men of the Mesopotamian forces who fell sick, or "stopped something," would find that the expedition's resources in the matter of transport for sick and wounded were very far below the Western standard, and that, indeed, those who were unlucky enough to be placed hors de combat in this campaign would have a very bad time of it indeed. But he only thought the "bad time" would be the time a sick or wounded man was on the way between the fighting zone and the sea. He certainly never dreamed that the "bad time" would be extended over the voy. age to India, and after his arrival there. But if we may believe the reports that have reached England from certain Indian war hospitals, our sick and wounded from Mesopotamia may be even to-day far from the end of their troubles when they strike "India's coral strands." Months ago some pasty revelations were made concerning the scandalous manner in which our soldiers were being treated in certain hospitals there.