NURSES FROM SPAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23088, 13 July 1938, Page 7

NURSES FROM SPAIN

SHORT REST IN ENGLAND MANY TRYING EXPERIENCES WORKING UNDER SHELL FIRE [I'KOM OUK OWN COIUtESrONDENT] LONDON, June 25 After nearly a year's continuous service in Spain, under tho Spanish Medical Aid organisation, two New Zealand nurses are spending a month's leave in England. They are Nurse R. Shadbolt, of Auckland, and Nurse I. Dodds, of Wellington. When they originally landed in Spain they wero sent to a hospital which had been established in an old monastery at Cuenca, in Central Spain. They are now working in Catalonia. For a considerable timo the New Zealanders w<?re working under British and American doctors, but at Catalonia the medical men are Spanish. Thev havo acquired sufficient knowledge of tho language to carry on comfortably in their duty. There have been many trying experiences, including a four dnvs' continuous bombing raid on Barcelona, and a tiring rail journey of three days in a hospital train, by which probably a thousand people wore travelling. Agriculture is carried on over a large area of the country, arid the workers put their entire energy into this duty, regarding it as tantamount to active service. As far as possible, hospitals are established in secluded areas and tho Bed Cross is no longer painted upon theso buildings, as this sign is used as a target by bombers from the air. Bed Cross bearers, too, do not wear tho armlet, because this, too, is a target for bombing aeroplanes. On one of the journeys the nurses lost all their baggage, but they are being re-equipped while in London. When they landed they had 10 days' complete rest with plenty of sleep and then 10 days further respite in tho bracing air of Eastbourno, on the Sussex coast.