HOSPITAL SUNDAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24296, 13 May 1940, Page 9

HOSPITAL SUNDAY

CELEBRATION IN DUNEDIN SERVICES IN CHURCHES The chairman, Mr J. W. Dove, and members of the Otago Hospital Board, members of the staff of the Dunedin Hospital and of the medical profession, and Red Cross and St. John V.A.D.’s were present at Knox Church last evening, when the Rev. D. C. Herron conducted a special service in commemoration of National Hospital Sunday. Mr Herron said that service to the sick and suffering was one of the most Christlike tasks to which anyone could devote his or her life. No one knew what was ahead of the members of the healing services now gathered in the congregation. It was probable that before next National Hospital Sunday numbers of those to whom he was now speaking would be nursing wounded soldiers. In the last war he himself had seen in military hospitals things which had caused tears of admiration to spring to his eyes. The problem of suffering was an unsolved problem. But for those who had eyes to see, it had associated with it the revelation of qualities which took one very near to God. The preacher concluded by saying that while he had dwelt on what patients thus did for those nursing them he did not forget that the life of a nurse with a radiant Christian faith in the hour of pain and darkness, could make the hospital ward, for the patient, the very gate of heaven. In the morning, a National Hospital Sundayservice was held at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, where Bishop Whyte delivered an address appropriate to the occasion, and solemn High Mass was sung. The service also was attended by Mr Dove and members of the Otago Hospital Board.