LIFE IN EGYPT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3196, 16 June 1915, Page 57

LIFE IN EGYPT.

HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION TAXED. APPEAL FOR NEW ZEALAND PAPERS. (From Ouk Own Correspondent.) PALMERSTON N., June 12. Trooper H. M. Haycock, of Palmerston North, who has just been invalided home, speaks of overcrowded hospitals in Egypt and the big need there is for New Zealand papers, either dailies Or weeklies. • In referring to the former, he give some interesting experiences of the life of the soldiers in Egypt. He said there were a large number of infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, measles, typhoid, and a few cases of even smallpox amongst the troops in Egypt. Practically every suitable building was converted into a military hospital, and even though a large number of very fine buildings had been so converted, all the hospitals were overcrowded. The Egyptian authorities gave up a certain portion of a hospital for treating some of the troopers. Trooper Haycock was in a hospital known as the Department of Public Health, entirely controlled by the Egyptian Government and in charge of _ Egyptian and French doctors. His experience of this institution was that it was very much overcrowded indeed. In normal times it is able to accommodate 300 patients, but there were then between 600 and 700 men receiving medical treatment. These were principally Arabs and Egyptians. Only a limited number were British troops. In the hospital there were cases of almost every infectious disease known in Egypt. One was able to speak to convalescent smallpox patients across the yard, the only division being a fence. In the next yard typhoid patients could be seen moving about. On a further side scarlet fever, diphtheria, tonsilitis, and other patients wore to be seen. It was no uncommon sight to see daily five or six bodies carried out of the typhoid ward, so severe were the ravages of this disease on the natives. There were only a few deaths from other diseases amongst the British troops. None of the patients could speak too highly of the kindly care and consideration which was shown to them by both the Egyptian and Italian doctors attending them, and especially of the French and Egyptian sisters, who were able to visit the many patients under their care only occasionally. Trooper Haycock spoke # of a woeful lack of dominion newspapers in the Cairo hospitals. All the patients were very anxious and keen to see the papers, and those who had friends or relatives at the front would be doing a great service to the hospital patients if they sent a regular supply of daily or weekly papers out there. Anyone fortunate enough to receive a paper from the dominion was eagerly sought after by his' comrades. Only those actually at the front could realise the craving for home news. Speaking of his own experiences in other hospitals after leaving the Egyptian Public Health Institution, Trooper Haycock said that he was fortunate enough to feceive a portion of some old New Zealand papers. “If those -who have friends or relatives at the front,” he said, “can realise what it means to lie in a hospital with the temperature in many instances considerably over 100 degrees in the day and then down to, 40 degrees in the evening, with flies so annoying that it is almost impossible for one to rest or even eat, with mosquitoes which keep one awake for hours, and which, when they penetrate the nets, bite and raise lumps in some cases as large as a bean or small pigeon’s egg, there will be an immediate response to the appeal for newspapers on behalf of our boys who are willingly doing at the front what they can for the Old Flag and its Empire. The men will, indeed, appreciate anything that can be done in the way'of sending papers to the military hospital and to that institution which' has done so much for us at the front (the Y.M.C.A.). On many occasions our comrades have visited the Y.M.C.A- and asked for daily or weekly papers or any magazines of the dominion which they can borrow or read,'but except on rare occasions there were few of them, and even in Cairo it was impossible to procure any of our weekly papers. Not so the Australians. Fortunately they had made some arrangements with a number of large booksellers in Cairo, and they were able to procure some of their weekly papers.”