“A GRAND JOB”

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22784, 7 January 1944, Page 4

“A GRAND JOB”

Second N.Z.E.F. Nurses

Excellence And Devotion

(N.Z.P.A.) AUCKLAND. Jan. 6. The excellence and devotion of the New Zealand Nurses and Voluntary Aids, who are on service with the Second 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 Army Nursing 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," said Miss Nutsey. “They compare very favourable and more than favourably with the Sisters of other countries. The training they receive in New Zealand is exceptionallv 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!” said Miss Nutsey.

“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 and between it and the troops in the van of the advance.

Sisters in Forward Areas

“This method of having a casualty clearing station staffed by Sisters in the forward areas is being maintained in Italy, where the casualty clearing 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 the casualty clearing station so far forward. Undoubtedly, she said, a wounded soldier’s chance of survival an complete recovery was very much better in this war than in the last. One of the main reasons for this was the speed with which the men received treatment after being wounded. In the earlier days of the last war it was not uncommon for men to go without proper treatment for three days. Now thev were frequently being attended to only two hours after they had been wounded. As an example of the difference this made. Miss Nutsey referred to abdominal wounds. There had been nothing like the number of deaths from these that there had been in the last war. Advances were also to be seen in the number of other directions. One was in the decreased number of typhoid cases, this being partly attributable to better field hygiene.