GRAVE SHORTAGE OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES IN CHINA

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 November 1948, Page 5

GRAVE SHORTAGE OF MEDICAL SUPPLIES IN CHINA

Plight Of The Wounded In The Hsichow Hospitals

(N.Z.P.A.—Reuter—Copyright) NANKING, Nov. 27 (Rec. 6 pm).—Ten thousand Nationalist wounded in eight regular and converted Hsuchow hospitals are receiving the best treatment possible, but on modern standard it is pitiably inadequate, reports the N.Z.P.A. Reuter correspondent, William Parrott, from Hsuchow.

Parrott, who is at present visiting the Central China battlefront, says that in the frost and cold of late autumn hundreds of men are lying about stone floors, draughty corridors and emergency wards. Their only beds are a padded cotton quilt. Others more fortunate have the comfort of hospital cots, but they are packed tightly one against the other. Three thousand seriously wounded already have ebeen flown out to the rear and another 5000 are being caAd for outside the city. More are arriving from the battlefields eaclj day. At

one hospital medical supplies are so short that every time a fresh quantity arrives it is consumed immediately. The same bandages are used time and time again and there is a great shortage of drugs, sterilisers and other equipment. Medical and nursing staffs are small. Visiting the Nationalist second army headquarters at Liuchi, near Hsuchow Parrott reports that the commander, Lieut.-General Chieu Ching Chuan, admitted that he had suffered great losses, due to the recent Communist encirclement of Jan. chuan, east of Hsuchow. General Chieu claimed that the second army group inflicted 150,000 casualties on the Communists. He declined to disclose his own losses.