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Early Days of the No. 1 NZ Stationary Hospital

Stationary Hospitals were designed to be mobile by being able to be moved to where they were required. No. 1 NZ Stationary Hospital had left Wellington by ship on May 20th, 1915 with a staff of seven medical officers and 86 other ranks and arrived at Port Said on 1st July.  Six New Zealand nurses joined the staff three or four weeks later.

The hospital, with a capacity for 200 was set up in a building previously used as the American Mission School.  This was  in response to the numbers of sick and injured New Zealand soldiers requiring hospital care since the Gallipoli landing a month earlier.  At the beginning of July, prior to any nurses being available, 150 convalescing New Zealand men were transferred from an Egyptian Military Hospital.  Within three weeks the number of patients had increased to 600. By the beginning of October there were 5,000 patients and there were 36 nurses.  The majority of the men were suffering from gastro- enteric infections.  Surgical patients were nursed in the building and medical cases and those convalescing were cared for in 25 large tents (marquees) and some huts.  

 

Conditions were described by Sister Isabel Clark [1] in a letter home:

“The work is pretty hard, but I am keeping very fit and think I will stand the climate very well. Quite a number of the sisters have been off duty. The principle trouble is the Egyptian trouble (dysentery).  The camp is right on the beach and I can tell you we had a lively time when we arrived first. You know No. 1 Stationary had only been here about 3 or 4 weeks before us and, of course, there were no paths or anything else formed. It was great ploughing about in the sand at night. I had 21 tents with eight patients in each, but things have improved now. It is not nearly so hard.”
29 September,1915. 

The Tents (Marquees)
The tents were made up of three layers of canvas and had open sides allowing the sea breezes to modify the Egyptian heat.  However, the sand under foot made the working conditions for the nurses very difficult.

Packing up and moving No. 1 NZ Stationary Hospital
On October 14th the hospital was packed up onto 23 trucks to be transported to Alexandria and then loaded onto a ship for “transport to an unknown destination”, the nurses only knowing that they would be needing camp equipment and warmer grey dresses.  “They are taking every precaution:  only the most fit are going.” wrote Isabel Clark[2] to her sister Maggie at home.   

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Acknowledgments:

Kendall, S. & Corbett, D. (1990).  New Zealand military nursing: a history of the Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps, Boer War to present day.
Rogers, Anna (2018) Stand for All Time.
[1]  from Kendall, S. & Corbett, D. (1990).  New Zealand military nursing. page 46.[1]
[1] Isabel Clark died when the Marquette was sunk.