AWM41 1046 - [Nurses Narratives] Sister E L Steadman - Part 1

Butler Colln       6/52

AWM 41    [6/20]

[[? ]]

 

AWM 41

AUSTRALIAN ARCHIVES

ACCESS STATUS

OPEN

 

SISTER E.L. STEADMAN.

 

373.2

[1046]

Q.A.I.N.S   Sr. E.L. Steadman   3/90

France

1916   No 12 British General

to No 10 British General

1917 [?]

To 20 C.C.S.  British near

Arras - Everything that could

possibly make for the comfort

of the patient was here - warmth

food, clothes"

"How good the Imperial hospitals

have been to me personally.  They

have recognised that the Aust

sister has had a training equal

to their own and have given

her her place accordingly".

 

The Official War Historian of the Commonwealth
Government (Dr. C. E. W. Bean), after his study of the
collection of private war records preserved in the Australian
War Memorial Library, wrote:-
"The private diaries in this collection furnish some of its most  
valuable historical records, but, like all private memoirs which were  
not compiled with any historical purpose, they should not be  
regarded as first-hand evidence except where it is certain that they  
are so.  The diarist is almost always sincere in his desire to record  
accurately, but he is subject to no obligation or inducement to  
indicate whether he is recording his own observations or incidents  
told him by friends or heard at third or fourth hand at the mess-table.  
Thus, in some of the diaries in this collection, scenes described with  
vivid detail, and without any warning that they are told at second  
or third hand, have been found to be completely inaccurate in  
important details. A certain number also have been written up 
or revised long after the events, though doubtless usually from notes  
made at the time. In most cases the student must rely on his  
experience and on internal evidence to guide him in judging what is  
and what is not likely to be historically accurate". 

90
253.1.8
Diaries Personal   -  General

Account of experiences with Imperial units by

Sister E.L. Steadman A.A.P.S.

 

(COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE

MELBOURNE letterhead - blank)

 

[[?]]

10/4/19

(Commonwealth of Australia Letterhead -  blank)

We were a party of 39 Australian sisters who sailed from Sydney

in December 1916.  We formed no unit, but were being sent to the

Imperial Government to staff their hospitals in France. Of course

we were still A.I.F. being equiped and maintained by our own

Australian Government and could be recalled to our own unit at any

time.  After arriving in England and being fitted up with a kit

consisting of camp stretcher, blankets, bath, stove etc, we landed in 

France at Boulogne early in March.  Some of the sisters went north

but some of us went south to Rouen.  We were distributed to

different hospitals in this military area.  At the hospital to which

I was detailed, we were met by the matron, who was a "regular",

we could not have been made more welcome, if it had been an

Australian hospital, we lived here in wooden shacks, and it

is surprising how comfortable one can make even a shack.

The hospital held 1,700 beds, practically all under canvas, and some

of the beds were devoted to shell shock cases, here was where I

found myself.  It was very interesting work, some of course

could not move others could not speak, some had lost their

memory, and did not even know their own names, others 

again had very bad jerks and twitchings.  Very careful

handling these poor lads needed, for supposing a man was just

finding his xxxx voice to be spoken to in anyway that was not

gentle and quiet, the man was done,"  and you would have to

start all over again to teach him to talk, the same thing applied

to walking, they must be allowed to take their time.  The M.O.

in charge here was the superintendent of a large mental asylum

in pre-war days and he treated these cases more by mental

suggestion than anything else.  Of course many of them had

to have quite a lot of sedatives, but the results of this method

were good.  Other methods for shell shock patients are were used by, ∧ others

electric batteries etc.  but not in this hospital by this doctor, he disliked

(2)

them very much. If the patient was restless and physically fit, he

was given light ward work to do to occupy his mind.

Rouen was a very large military area, 50,000 British troops were

estimated to be rationed at one meal, it was the base of so many units.

After being a few months at this hospital, the Americans took it,

and of course we had to move out.  I moved on to another hospital

and here I was sent into a compound to nurse German prisoners.

It seemed rather strange at first to be in a barbed wire enclosure

with a guard all round with fixed bayonets, but one soon gets

used to anything. Fritz made a good patient, but I am sure he

had not the fine sensibilities of our own British boys.  I have

marvelled as I did amputation dressings, huge through and

through G.S.∧ (gun shot) wounds penetrating chests wounds and Fritz never

turned a hair, indeed chattered while you were dressing.  There

was one thing about nursing them, you did your work without

a vestige of sentiment, just for "pride of work's sake", nothing

else.  If amongst our own you had some very sick boys you

thought constantly of them off or on duty, but Fritz you left

when your day was done without a thought.  They did their

own work about the wards, bed making, sponging, meals etc

the sister had all her time taken up in doing dressings, and

managing the ward.  Amongst my duties was going to a 

dressing tent for an hr. or so at 10a.m. each day to dress British

walking wounded, as the convoys came in the minor cases

were put in a section by themselves, and each morning there

would be a line of sometimes as many as 40 or 50 waiting

at the dressing tent.  The M.O. say them, and then I dressed

them, the patients were sorted out, some sent on to England,

some to Convalesent Camp, others to be X Rayed and sent to surgical

wards for operation, or into medical wards for treatment.

We had been having very large convoys all the time since

(3)

coming to Rouen, they were coming off the Somme, and I have known

as many as 4 Ambulance trains coming in in one day, crowded 

with wounded, our own hospital taking as many as 200 in one

convoy.  Both the hospitals I had been at were under canvas, so

of course a fair amount of managing had to be done, but as long

as the poor broken boys were cared for, what mattered!

In November 1917 I was sent with several others up to a C.C.S. (the 20th)

belonging to the B.E.F.  It was on the Cambrae front, and the

C.C.S. was situated a few miles south east of Arras.  We were not

very far behind the line, and the noise of the barrage as the boys 

"went over was terrific.  One day Fritz counter attacked seven

times, and the bombardment was almost incessant.  Here

I was put on night duty in the resuscitation and pre operation

wards.  Two C.C.S. are usually side by side, and the "take

in" is for 24hrs each, to allow each to clear before their turn to

take again.  I was delighted to find that everything that

could possibly make for the comfort of the patients was here,

warmth, food, clothes.  We started our taking in at 8 p.m.

and the ambulances sometimes seemed to be always coming, the

patients were carried into the reception tent, here their wounds

were looked at by the Orderly Officer, and dressed pro tem.

they were then taken into the pre. op. ward to await X. Ray

and operation, the collapsed ones into the resuscitation ward.

They were almost too far gone sometimes to allow us even

to cut their kakhi off, we packed them with hot bags, hot air

was directed under the blankets into their beds, subcutaneous

or intravenous transfusions were done, and hypodermic

injections of Strychnine or Camphor oil given.  Some of them

responded very quickly, you would wonder at the way they

"bucked up", but other poor things just "went out".  The

surgeon specialist in charge believed in resuscitating first

(4)

and risking the septic infection, rather than operating before

resuscitation, and thus avoiding sepsis.  This method was to

give large drinks of Sodi-bi-carb making the system alkaline

against sepsis and gas infection.  In the pre. op. ward the

rows of stretchers had all to be looked after, and the routine

method was to give each one a hypodermic injection of Morphia

with Atropine, so that before they got to the theatre their pain

was much minimised, after their operations, they were sent to

different wards, thus clearing the pre. op. ward.  We were

certainly not as busy as some C.C.S. on the same front, one had

8,000 patients in 8 days and 1479 operations.  Fritz was

constantly over bombing, and it was very hard to think that

the patients just out of one danger, were directly in another

and as soon as ever they heard a Fritz plane or a bomb, the

question would come "Sister is Fritz near?" and always you

answered the same "No far enough away". They seemed to

be calmed to see the sisters walking about the wards.

The C.C.S. was mostly under canvas, but there were some

wooden shacks, we slept in bell tents, but were very snug.

All around the neighbourhood were dug outs and trenches, and

barbed wire entanglements, the villages many of them were

rased to the ground hardly one stone standing on another, it

seemed terrible to see a beautiful city like Arras a heap of ruins.

After leaving the C.C.S. I was sent to a skin hospital (No 2 General) of about 

2,500 beds near Boulogne, and here I have on worked on

skin diseases ever since.  All varieties are found here

Scabies, Psoriasis, Seborrhoea, Eczema and many others.  As the

patients are most of them really well men except for their

skin condition, the kind of nursing is quite different.  They

keep their own wards clean, fold their beds barrack room

fashion, and the sister's duty is to keep order, manage the

(5)

stores, diets, etc, and to do the dressings, with the assistance of an

orderly. Some of the skins are so bad, that they need the dressing done

two or three times a day.  Many of the M.O's here also believe

in flooding the system with an alkaline and large doses of

Sodi Citras is are often given.  They also did clean surgery at this hospital

but my work lay mostly in the skin wards.

I cannot lay put my pen down without saying how good

the Imperial Hospitals have been to me personally, and I am

sure many other sisters feel just the same.  They have

recognised that the Australian Sister has had a training

equal to their own, and have given her her place accordingly.

90
 253/1/50.
 

E.L. Steadman

Diaries Personal in General

1918.

 

19/5/19