DEVOTED NURSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25427, 7 January 1944, Page 2

DEVOTED NURSES

WORK m BATTLE AREAS EARLY ATTENTION TO WOUNDS (P.A.) AUCKLAND. Jan. 8. The excellent service and the devotion of the New Zealand nurses and voluntary aids who are serving with the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Mediterranean theatre were emphasised by Miss E. M. Nutsey, who returned recently after more than three years as matron-in-chief of the New Zealand Ax - my Ndrsing Service. Miss Nutsey, who was formerly lady superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, is at present on leave and is staying with relatives in Auckland. ( “Our girls have done a grand job,” Miss Nutsey said. “They compare very favourably, more than favourably, with the 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 very good stead on service, where frequently they have had to rely on makeshifts of their own contriving. “They have been magnificent,” Miss Nutsey added. “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 the 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, which is now under Sister M. J. Jackson, who used to be at the Auckland Hospital, is right up with the Eighth Army.” 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 muen better in this war than in the last. One of the main reasons for this was the speed with which men received treatment after being wounded. In the early 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, she said. 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.