Description
Object description
British nurse served with Voluntary Aid Detachment, British Red Cross at Wicklow Lodge Auxiliary Hospital, Melton Mowbray, Bowden Auxiliary Hospital, Nottingham and St Anselm's Auxiliary Hospital in Walmer, GB, 1915-1919
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of period as nurse with Voluntary Aid Detachment, British Red Cross at Wicklow Lodge Auxiliary Hospital, Melton Mowbray and Bowden Auxiliary Hospital, Nottingham in GB, 1915-1917: background to joining Red Cross, 1913; expectations of coming war; training; initial training at Wicklow Lodge Auxiliary Hospital, Melton Mowbray, 3/1915; preparing Bowden Auxiliary Hospital, Nottingham for use as hospital; attitude towards cleaning duties. Recollections of period with at St Anselm's Auxiliary Hospital in Walmer, GB, 1917-1919: arrival of gas casualties; preparing operating theatre; importance of hygiene; surgeon's operation on sciatic nerve and patient's recovery.
REEL 2 Continues: treatment of wounds; move to hospital; description of hospital; amputations and threat of haemorrhages; psychological condition of patients; problems caused by loss of blood; description of Long Liston Splint.
REEL 3 Continues: description of Thomas Splint; shortage of dressings and methylated spirit; use of draining tubes and disinfectants; condition of patients on arrival; shell shock cases; intensity of work; labelling of newly arrived patients; tetanus case; relations between staff and patients; duration of patients' stay; relations between Voluntary Aid Detachment and professional nursing staff.
REEL 4 Continues: taking Blue Stripe Assistant Nurses examination; uniform worn; accommodation; rations; degree to which patients' helped on ward; news of war's progress; sight of ambulances returning after Zeebrugge Raid, 4/1918; sight of arrival former prisoners of war at Dover; German air raids and naval bombardments.
REEL 5 Continues: patients' recreational activities; singing to patients; visiting arrangements; massage provided in hospital; placing patients on terrace; observing blackout; recreational activities; state of health.
REEL 6 Continues: use of anaesthetics; financial support from father; nature of work; Armistice Day celebrations, 11/11/1918; closure of hospital, 1919; pattern of post-war work and duties with British Red Cross; rations and billets; case of wounded man reluctant to return to front; Christmas celebrations.