SURGICAL AID

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23330, 23 October 1937, Page 9

SURGICAL AID

CHINA'S URGENT NEED RED CROSS SOCIETY'S APPEAL CAMPAIGN OPENED IN DUNEDIN A decision to launch an appeal for £2OOO for the provision of surgical assistance for the people affected by the hostilities in the Sino-Japanese conflict was reached at a meeting of citizens in the City Council Chambers yesterday morning. The meeting, which was called at the desire of the joint council of the Order of St. John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society, was presided over by the Mayor (the Rev. E. T. Cox), and was attended by representatives of churches and other organisations, and of the Chinese community in the city. The Mayor said that at the request of the headquarters of the New Zealand Red Cross Society the meeting had been called" to set before the public of Dunedin the need for help in connection with the Sino-Japanese war. The objective was to support a fund which aimed at providing 20 doctors, nurses, and a field ambulance for the Eastern war zone. The unit would be sent t 6 China where the need at the present moment. was so great, as that was the seat of hostilities for both combatants. On the side of the Chinese the need was the greater, for the Chinese people lacked equipment, supplies, and workers, whereas the Japanese had the largest and finest Red Cross in the world. Mr Cox said that there was no question of supporting China against Japan, for the strict neutrality of the Red Cross was known throughout the world and throughout the ages. AN URGENT APPEAL

The Mayor then read a letter from Mr Lewis Gielgud, the Undersecretary of the League of Red Cross Societies, who stated that an urgent appeal had come to New Zealand from the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose representative in the Far East had called urgently for surgeons to help the Red Cross people in Nanking to discharge the colossal responsibilities which had fallen upon them. The New Zealand Red Cross had lost no time in taking up the challenge. In co-operation with the Order of St. John, the society had already issued a call for qualified volunteers and had launched an appeal to the public for the money which would be necessary to equip and get them to China, and also to maintain them while engaged in their mission of mercy.

Mr Gielgud said in his letter that he had been in the Far East sufficiently recently to be able to vouch for the immensity of the need which led to the appeal. The number of qualified surgeons in China was not anything like adequate for the normal needs of the country, and in an emergenecy such as that existing at present assistance from abroad was vitally necessary. The Mayor then explained that the reason for the appeal having been made on behalf of the Chinese was that the Japanese Red Cross, which was one of the most highly organised societies in the world, had stated definitely that it did not require any assistance. The Rev. V. G. Bryan King, president of the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Red Cross, also gave an outline of the pressing needs for assistance which existed in China, and said that it was the Joint Committee's desire to secure £IO,OOO in New Zealand for the equipment and despatch of surgical assistance to the Far East. CAMPAIGN TO BE ORGANISED Dr A. R. Falconer, president of the St. John Ambulance Association, moved the following motion, which was carried unanimously:—" That this meeting of citizens of Dunedin commends the urgent appeal issued by the Joint Council of the Order of St. John and the New Zealand Red Cross Society on behalf of the sufferers in the Sino-Japanese war." It was decided to call another meeting for next Friday morning, when the details of the campaign could be organised, and it was also agreed to open a fund in the Town Hall and to invite the daily newspapers to open similar funds in their columns. The question of the provision of clothing for the Chinese refugees in Shanghai was briefly discussed, and it was announced that gifts of warm clothing of any description would be received at any of the Chinese business places in the city and forwarded to their destination.