IRON LUNG

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 290, 8 December 1939, Page 6

IRON LUNG

FOR WANGANUI HOSPITAL OUT FROM LORD NUFFIELD The Wanganui Hospital Board has received from England an iron lung, one of the many applied for by New Zealand'hospitals and made available through the generosity of Lord Nuffield. The iron lung was brought to New Zealand freight C'ee, but the board has had to pay the cost of transport from Wellington to Wanganui. Customs duly amounting to £5 was also charged to the board, but efforts will be made to have this amount refunded. The lung arrived in two cases, but has not yet been unpacked Early this year the Wanganui Hospital Board receded communication from the Department of Health stating that Lord Nuffield had offered to supply major hospitals in the Empire with iron lungs. The board made its application on February 22. The Auckland and Wairarapa Hospital Boards recently received iron lungs. In January last Lord Nuffield asked Professor R. R. Mclntosh, Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetics at Oxford University, if there was a reasonable prospect of three lives being saved if many hospitals throughout the Empire had an iron lung. When he was answered in the affirmative, Lord Nuffield said: “I will immediately order 1000. It seems a pity to think that some of them will be used as coal scuttles, but it is more tragic to think of a life lost because I have not spent £25 to £3O. I have seen what iron lungs can do md I am satisfied. It is the youngsters I want to help.”