EXCELLENT WORK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 7 January 1944, Page 5

EXCELLENT WORK

N.Z. NURSES AND 2nd N.Z.E.F. TRIBUTE PAID BY MATRON Auckland, Jan. 6. The excellent work and devotion of the New Zealand nurses and voluntary aids who are on service with the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Mediterranean theatre were emphasisd by Miss E. M. Nutsey, who returned recently after more than three years as matron-in-chief of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service. Miss Nutsey, who was formerly lady superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, is at present bn leave and is staying with relatives in Auckland. “Our girls have done a grand job,” said Miss Nutsey. “They compare very favourably, more than favourably, with their sisters of other countries. The training they receive in New Zealand is exceptionally good and to it they add an enterprise and resourcefulness that have stood them in good stead on service where frequently they have had to rely on makeshifts of their own contriving. “They have been magnificent,” said Mis Nutsey. “Many of them have been right up in the forward areas, and during the advance to Tunisia they were even on occasions ahead of the division, between it and troops in the van of the advance. This method of having a casualty clearing’station staffed by sisters in the forward areas is being maintained in Italy, where the station, now under Sister M. J. Jackson, who used to be at the Auckland Hospital, is right up with the Eighth Army.” GREATER CHANCE OF SURVIVAL Miss Nutsey commented on the value of having a casualty clearing station so far forward. Undoubtedly, she said, a wounded soldier’s chance of survival and complete recovery was very much better in this war than in the last. One of the main reasons for this was th e speed with which men received treatment after being wounded. In the earlier days of the last war it was not uncommon for men to go without proper treatment for three days. Now they were frequently being attended to only two hours after they had been wounded. As an example of the difference this made, Miss Nutsey instanced abdominal wounds. There had been nothing like the number of deaths from these that there had been in the last war. Advances were also to be seen in a number of other directions. One was in the decreased number of typhoid cases, this being partly attributable to better field hygiene.— P.A.