NEWS OF THE WOUNDED

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9095, 14 July 1915, Page 2

NEWS OF THE WOUNDED

THE RECORDS IN ALEXANDRIA. ‘ The procedure m connection with the dispatch of news of the wounded is described in a letter received by the Minister for Defence from Captain N. Fitaherbert, officer in charge of the New Zealand Records Station at Alexandria. “Tlie wounded arc immediately put on the nearest available ship and brought to Alexandria (forty-eight hours’ steam), says Captain Fitzhorbert. Immediately on arrival they are met by motor ambulances, and a hospital train which comes- on to the wharf. The motor ambulances are used for distributing to the various hospitals in and around Alexandria. The train is filled and sent to the hospitals at Cairo and Zeitoun. • _ “Tho first official intimation of casualties is from a list sent in by the medical officer in charge of each ship on arrival, this list in many cases not giving any particulars of wounded, etc., and giving no information as to which hospital men arc .being sent to. From this list' my cable to you is mode out. I am thus obliged to wait for the returns from the various hospitals before I can record the nature of the wound and the name of tho hospital to which tho man ha sbecn sent. This return 1 usually receive in tho course of a few days or, possibly a week. “There aro seven hospitals in and around Alexandria, several miles apart, containing several thousand patients, and New Zealanders are in all of them. There aro also many New Zealand wounded distributed amongst the Cairo and Zeitoun hospitals. _ You will therefore see how difficult it is to reply satisfactorily to cables about injuries and progress of men wounded. . “The medical authorities are arranging to keep Abbassia Hospital, Cairo, entirely for New Zealand casualties. This is all right as far as it goes, but it only bolds 400. . . . All the hospitals report dangerous and critical cases, which are at once cabled to you. . . . All other cases aro to be considered as improving or progressing well. I should bo glad if yon would make this known as widely as possible, so that the natural anxiety of relatives may be relieved to somo extent. I am glad to say there are many slightly wounded cases/’