Helping one another
A WEEK in a hospital hut was an unenviable experience (writes Private Putiki, on the Wanganui Chronicle in describing his experiences at Trentham). In many cases the trained medical orderlies became victims of the ‘‘flu’’ fiend, and the task of looking after a complement of 24 patients was thrust upon unexperienced men of outside units. Some of them rose heroically to the occasion, and filled an arduous and unsought position with a degree of ability that was surprising in the extreme. Personally, I will always have a warm regard for a
Timaru waterside worker, rough in manner, but cheerful in temperament, who devoutly nursed our sick group of two dozen. In stockinged feet he maintained a ceaseless allnight vigil, whispering a few words of comfort to a suffering inmate, tucking blankets around restless sufferers, and obeying insistent calls through the long night hours for a drink of water. But there was work for many hands, and it must be recorded that patients in the improvement stage were always ready to assist helpless comrades. It was not an easy matter when one’s gait was painfully unsteady to help with a neighbour’s morning ablutions, or to steer a zigzag course from a nearby cookhouse with a brimming dish of arrowroot.
epidemic has given cases of champagne, brandy, and port wine, poultry, cream and eggs, by which civilians as well as soldiers have benefited, on Wednesday received a visit at Messrs Thomson’s factory from a party of soldiers from the Home and the Hospital. The boys from the latter institution were wheeled in their chairs by returned Anzacs. The visitors were warmly welcomed by Mr George Thomson and the staff, were shown through the factory, and told by Mr Thomson that any morning they liked they would be taken for a ride in the country in one of the firm’s motors.
financial position, which showed that after all expenses, there was a credit balance in hand. The soldiers would run the club themselves as their own property. The total number, so far as he was aware, that had left for the war from the locality was 270. Of these 37 had made the supreme sacrifice.