AT A BASE HOSPITAL.

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume VIII, Issue 4, 1 October 1915, Page 173

AT A BASE HOSPITAL.

NO BEDS FOR 100 MEN. Gifts Greatly Appreciated. 'We are right m the thick of things now, "wounded and sick coming m faster than we can take them," wrote Nurse C. B. Anderson from the New Zealand Army Hospital, Cairo, on August 13, to her brother, Mr. W. D. Anderson, of Wako and Anderson, Wyndham Street, Auckland. The writer continued : " One hundred and fifty cases came m the day before yesterday, and 91 came m last night. Beds and mattresses are all round the corridors and verandahs. As every few patients go out a fxvsh batch is put m, and another surgical ward downstairs has had to be used for gastro-enteritis and dysentry cases. The men say it is just like Heaven to be here, and one feels that one cannot do enough fo.r them. ...... Some that we g-t are absolute wrecks, but a few days' sleep and baths and feeding, books and papers and the chance of seeing some ordinary fellow mortals and a few women about soon set them right again, and they begin to look as if they had wakened out of a sleep. I go round and see that they are all shaved and tidy, etc., m the morning, and feel quite proud of my flock. When I went this morning I found men sleeping on mattresses on every available patch of the floor, 100 for whom we had no beds. I believe we are to make our accommodation up to 1,000 beds. We feel that we are doing what we came for, and are all putting every available ounce of ourselves into the work. Each sister has a black boy now to do the scrubbing and dirty work, anel the orderlies can give all their time to nuvsing and helping us. When my patients reach chicken diet they get a whole chicken for dinner every day. They are small, but very tender. " Boxes arrived from New Zealand last week with sheets and pyjamas, towels, and all sorts of necessaries for sick people. I am sure those who sent them will never realise how much they m r an to us, for they can never realise m New Zealand how much we are m need of th°m. . . . We have 650 patients m the hospital, and

are discharging them by fifties and hundreds to make room for new and worse cases. We have them m tents, verandahs and corridors, and the doctors are operating from 6 a.m. till the heat of the day gets too great, then m the afternoon anel right on into the evening anel night. There seems to be a very great many head anel arm

wounds among them. The men who left here just a week ago are coming back now, wounded. They went straight into action when they arrived. It is said that they have clone wonderful things at the peninsula, however, anel our men get the very greatest praise."