The Backblocks Nurse

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume VIII, Issue 4, 1 October 1915, Page 194

The Backblocks Nurse

Devotion to Duty

An idea of the trials nurses working m the backblocks have to unelergo may be gained from a letter written by Nurse Silvester, a midwifery nurse, engaged m the Kawhia district, under the Waikato Hospital Board, to her parents m Hamilton, and published m an Auckland exchange. 'I have been busy lately," she writes, ''and have had no time for anything but work. Last Sunday I was called out to a confinement case at Oparau. I journeyed out by launch, and on airival at the house found that the boy, one of twins, required medical attention. I got into communication with Dr. Hall, of Te Awamutu, over 30 miles away. He ordered the infant to be conveyeel to Te Awamutu. With a neighbour, I started off m a sulky, at. 2 p.m., m teeming rain, which con tinued throughout the greater part of the journey. We arrived at Te Rau-a Moa four hours later, where we had tea, and resumed our journey with fresh horses, arriving at Pirongia about 10.30. Here I had to change vehicles again, and, leaving the neighbour behind, continued my journey to Te Awamutu, arriving at the doctor's residence a few minutes before midnight. The doctor immediately commenced an operation on the child, at whr;h I assisted. I looked after the baby during the night, and at 4.30 a.m., breakfast was

prepared, and, catching the coach, the baby and I set off back. I was dreadfully sick m the coach until we reached Te Rau-a-Moa. Here we transferred to the sulky, and wasn't I glad ? After a dreadful Journey over terrible roads, we got back to Kav hia again late m the day. I had scarcely been m the house ten minutes when along came a man with a request that I should go out and see his wife, who had been ill all day. So I changed my clothes, and off again, and brought another little soldier into the world at 2.30 next morning. Goodness, wasn't I glad when night came, and, knowing the mother was safe. 1 got some sleep. I rode through from Marakopa on Tuesday, and the roads — -well, it is impossible for one not having traversed them to imagine what they are like. They told me before I started that I would never get through, but I did. When the husband was coming home the other night with his pack-horses two of them went through the fascines They had an awful job with them, and at last had to abandon one of them. That is the road I have to travel over. Don't you envy me ? When I arrived here I was like a block of mud." We doubt if any story from the trenches can surpass this for stoicism and devotion to duty.