“NURSES ANGLAISES.”

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144815, 20 October 1915, Page 8

“NURSES ANGLAISES.”

HOSPITAL WORK IN THE FRENCH LINES.

GRATEFUL PATIENTS. PARIS, August 14. We have grown as used to the uniform of the English nurse in the streets of Paris as we have to the khaki of the British soldier, and although they are to be seen in fewer numbers now than during last winter, when the British Red Cross had so many hospitals in the city, the nurses have not left us altogether, and we, still speculate on the meanings of their different uniforms.

The French -people speak well of the “Nurses Anglaises.” and in the hospitals behind the litje where British or American nursing prevails the French soldiers consider themselves lucky. Tire comfort and cleanliness please them, and they grow accustomed to the hospital etiquette. But there are some British muses of whom we have heard very little, although that little is of great account. They are the nurses on the front, the French front, who are working in French military hospitals under direct orders of the French military authorities and who are paid by the French Government.

Very quietly an Englishwoman offered to organise a staff ol British nurses for this purpose, and as quietly the French military authorities accepted, so that since last December HOD British nurses have been working hard all along the French iiue. They have been in bombardments, they have fought with disease? they have tactfully made their methods of nursing acceptable to the French doctors, they have shown the metal of which they are made by; their resourcefulness in very difficult, circumstances, and they have learned not only a good deal of French, but a great deal about the French character, and their knowledge has brought them much wisdom.

HARDSHIPS AND DANGERS. They arc paid at the rate of £4O a year, and, they pay. all incidental expenses themselves. If they fall ill they are sent home, and that is all that is done for them. They rank as officers and hare their own mess and whatever privileges for personal comfort may be going. But comforts arc rare in the danger zone of the armies, and the position of the British nurses has often been perilous. They work in bands of five or six. and they have orderlies to help them and a certain number of French professional nurses. Their first heavy work was among the typhoid patients, and their value in such work may be easily imagined, particularly when we learn the dearth of modern conveniences in the hastily installed hospitals where they were called upon to do their best. One nurse writes:—

This is certainly a weird place at night'. One hundred and fifty patients 111 this block, and only three orderlies and one of ourselves on duty. Several men are delirious, and it is a constant chasing from one ward to the other to stuff them into their little bods.

Later on she describes one of the privileges tho nurses enjoy by their rank as officers:—

The night nurse sit-s in the modccin chef’s room, a rather ghastly room with two windows and no blinds, and people peering in all the . time to see tho •■‘freak'’ who sits at the desk in a nursing cap, a sports coat, and an awful pair ot slippers, but so comfortable. I should certainly disgrace any hospital by my garb, but, as all the windows arc open and the floor is of stone, it is very cold about 0 a.m., especially to the feet.

From another part of t the line wo get French tributes to British nurses, and hear of their splendid courage under bombardment. They carried • their patients into the comparative safety of cellars, they stayed by those whom it was impossible to move, and in all cases they showed a calmness and cheerfulness which proved of immeasurable help to those in authority. A nurse who had been nursing typhoid for many weeks, and who was tired beyond description, tells how., one dav, after some difficulty with an orderly who. did not understand her very broken French, she sat down on the foot of a soldier’s bed and said ■with a soh, *‘l must go home. I can’t stand it any longer. It’s too awful.” At which the soldier just put his head d*\yn on nis pillow* and cried like a child. “So of course,” said the nurse, “I couldn’t go. If they find ns as useful as that, no sacrifice is too great to make for them.” •

DIFFICULTIES OF LANGUAGE. The difficulties of the language have caused many nurses to have experiences which are both comical and serious, 1 as they make for misunderstanding. To translate from English .into French is extraordinarily dangerous, *‘<Te veux.” says a nurse to an orderly, and ho bristles with obstinacy; whereas if she onl\ r knew t enough to use the verb in another tense tho orderly would be as obedient as .she could wish. ' The food is yet another drawback, for there is no human being alive who appears to attach more importance to an “English breakfast” than the hospital nurse. Great praise is given to the Scotch, the Canadian, and the provincial trained English nurses for their power to adapt themselves to anything and everything, and it seems as if resourcefulness were of greater value on the French front than perfect technique. It is. indeed, rather hopeless to be technically perfect in your work* if you have not the necessary tools, and how often do not the English nurses in the military hospitals find themselves forced to do medical nursing and surgical dressings with the minimum of hospital necessaries. A thoroughly cordial relationship exists between the French doctors and English nurses now ' that the nurses ' have proved uicmselves efficient iu their work, and the nurses sa-v that, the French surgeons have taught them a great deal. Between the nurses and the patients there is mutual respect and approciatidp of each- other’s qualities. The soldier expresses his thanks in the graceful French habit of writing a letter of thanks when he leaves the hospital, and of continuing to send postcards to assure his nurse of his wellbeing for a long time after.