AWM41 1046 - [Nurses Narratives] Sister E L Steadman - Part 2

90
ACCOUNT OF EXPERIENCES WITH THE IMPERIAL UNITS BY SISTER E.L.
STEADMAN. A.A.N.S.
AUSTRALIAN WAR RECORDS SECTION
E253/1/50
CLASSIFICATION SUB-SECTION
E481/1
E481/3
[[?]]
We were a party of 39 Australian sisters who sailed from Sydney
in December 1916. We formed no unit, but were being lent 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 ^2ND 12 General 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 made 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 voice, to be spoken to in any way 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
those 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
were used by others electric batteries etc. but not in this hospital
by this doctor, he disliked 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 to another (No. 10 General)
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
gun shot wounds, penetrating chest 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 hour or so at 10 a.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. saw them, and then I dressed them, the patients were sorted
out, some sent to England, some to Convalescent Camp, others to
be X. Rayed and sent to surgical wards for operation, or into
medical wards for treatment. We had been having large convoys all
the time since 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.
[[?]]

-2-
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 the 20th
C.C.S. belonging to the B.E.F. It was on the Cambrai 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 24
hours 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 pre. 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 to even to cut their khaki 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 all given. Some of them
responded very quickly, you would wonder at the way they "bucked up"
but otherspoor things just "went out". The surgeon ^resident in charge
believed in resuscitating first and risking the septic infection,
rather than operating before resuscitation, and thus avoiding
sepsis. His 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 has 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 get to 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.S.S. on the same front, one had
8, 000 patients in 6 days and 1,479 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 bomb, the question would come,
"Sister is Fritz near?" and always you answered the same "Not 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 razed 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. 26 General) of about 2,500 beds
near Boulogne, and here I have 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 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-Citrae are often given. They also did clean surgery at this
hospital but my work lay mostly in the skin wards.
I cannot 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.

ACCOUNT OF EXPERIENCES WITH THE IMPERIAL UNITS BY SISTER E.L.
STEADMAN. A.A.N.S.
[*Spare copies*] 3/90
Pages 1 & 2 repeated.