Red Cross Hospital

“ For the first an emergency case, similar to that in use in England, Germany, and other Red Cross Treaty Nations, and this has been adapted to Red Cross needs and methods under the direct supervision of the Medical Board of the Red Cross Hospital. It contains material and surgical dressings of the best class known to modern surgery. A most valuable part of the permanent equipment of this emergency case is a series of emergency charts, arranged for instantaneous reference, giving simple brief instructions for dealing with every conceivable case of accident, pending the arrival of the doctor. ”

“ Cars rushed us to one of the Red Cross hospitals. A doctor slipped out of bed, examined our cards, decided in which wards we should be put, and orderlies led or carried us thither. A nurse showed each of us to his room. We were got to bed and another nurse brought some tea. Next morning we were examined and put down for removal across the Channel.
The nurses are radiant as sunshine, and diffuse a spirit of merriment throughout the hospital. It was a pure joy to be under their care. ”

“ All the women nurses of our society go through scientific and practical training for two and three years, the latter term being for the higher course of nursing, whilst the men nurses are required to take a ten months’ course of training.
Our Main Red Cross Hospital in Tokyo has now been appropriated to the use of the Army. It is, therefore, made a branch hospital of the Tokyo Military Reserve Hospital. Since the outbreak of the war, many additional barracks have been built on the wide ground of the Red Cross Hospital. ”

“ While I think it was right to take a share in the erection of this convalescent home, which indeed could not have been obtained as a military hospital, it immediately raised in mind the consideration of the propriety of the Red Cross conducting hospitals in any circumstances. It is of course the English practice, and the special circumstances of Great Britain may make it necessary to erect Red Cross hospitals. The Commonwealth of Australia has never prevented the establishment of as many hospitals as may be considered necessary in the field. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the German Red Cross hospital at Syracuse was an organization of this kind and it aroused nothing but enthusiasm. A hospital, however, is not like a distributing agency. What the Italians would have objected to, and rightly, would have been any attempt on the part of foreigners to decide Italian questions; how a given body of men should be employed, where certain orphans should be sent, what families should first be assisted ”

“ The hospitals, both American and Cuban, are located on the shore just to the right of us, and have been visited by our men during the night. Some of their surgeons called on us; all seemed interested in the Red Cross, but none thought that a woman nurse would be in place in a soldier’s hospital ”

“ Red Cross Hospital Ship.
Any person entering into a community as nurse is not obliged to take any kind of oath, but gives only the promise to submit to a vigorous discipline, to acquit him or herself conscientiously of all duties and to nurse the sick carefully. The feminine personnel is divided into two categories—sisters of charity and nurses for surgery. ”

“ When the time for this change should come, it was desired that some permanent good might remain as a memorial of the relief work in Adana, and it was planned that the patients remaining from the American Red Cross Hospital, together with whatever hospital equipment might have been accumulated, should be left to the care of the American Mission in a large building belonging to them, which is now being altered for use as a hospital. There is no hospital in Adana, except one poorly equipped and totally inadequate charity institution, and the field of usefulness for a good hospital would be great. ”

“ The Red Cross Hospital in New York, from which the nurses had theretofore been enlisted, being temporarily closed, Miss Maxwell offered her office at the Presbyterian Hospital for the registration of nurses sent out by the auxiliary; and at her urgent request, Miss K.M. Pierce, superintendent of the Samaritan Hospital at Troy, who was then in New York, devoted her vacation to making arrangements for the registration and transportation of the large number of nurses called into the city. ”

“ The Duchess of Devonshire has turned over the great mansion as the official headquarters for the Red Cross. Nearby, in Mayfair, Madame Moravieff, whose husband is connected with the Russian diplomatic service, is serving as commandant for the hospital she has opened for English soldiers. Lady Londonderry’s house in Park Lane is a hospital. By the end of the first year of war, like this, no less than 850 private residences in England had been transformed into Voluntary Aid Detachment Red Cross Hospitals. ”

“ He had had trouble in getting the work done through the social welfare workers in the hospital, as the public wants the individual glory of handing something to the boys themselves. The Red Cross has also been a great aid in investigating home conditions of the patients, especially of tubercular patients who want to go home to die. Also, in the case of a man who asks for a long furlough because his mother or sister is dying, the Red Cross will investigate and get an immediate report, and many times it will be found that the mother or sister is not sick at all. ”

“ With the growth of the hospital there came ever-increasing demands for ice and milk, for delicacies of every sort, and for all the comforts and conveniences that tend to make hospital work pleasant and effective. Early in the history of the Second Division hospital, the Red Cross paid the bills for a bath house and a kitchen. It furnished also the large circular wall tent for convalescents. It gave over a hundred cots and mattresses, and nearly a thousand pillows. Of sheets and pillow-cases, nightshirts and pajamas, it gave many thousands. ”

“ An institution, such as an army hospital, deals with the sick by masses. Much must be left to subordinates, many of whom have little or no experience in caring for the sick. The system is devised for the many. But, where many are sick, a percentage of the patients cannot regain health without special care. The work done by the Red Cross at Fort McPherson was that which could not be done effectually by institutional methods. Furthermore, those who assisted in the work were actuated solely by philanthropic motives. ”

“ The Red Cross had three hospitals of its own in Paris. The first of these was at Neuilly, the hospital which had been the American Ambulance Hospital from the beginning of the war, given over on the third anniversary of its inauguration. Here French and American soldiers, American civilians who worked with the army, and Red Cross officers and men were cared for. ”

“ There is nothing worth while for us to do here. The only wounded I saw were a few Frenchmen parading their bandaged heads and hands for the admiration of the women. The hospitals are well organized and quite full, it is true, but I'm told that no more wounded are being sent here. The Sisters of Mercy and the regular French Red Cross force seem very competent to handle the situation, and there are two government hospital ships already anchored in this port. We would only be butting in to offer our services. ”

“ She could see lights within—the passing figures of nurses—rows of beds—and men in bed jackets—high rooms frescoed in bright colours.
'That used to be the Casino. Now it's a Red Cross Hospital. There are always doctors there. So when we moved him away from the camp, we took this little house close to the Hospital. The senior surgeon there can be often in and out. He's looking after him splendidly.'
A small room in a small house, built for summer lodgings by the sea; bare wooden walls and floor; a stove; open windows through which came the slow boom of waves breaking on a sandy shore ”

“ Even now, when the government has allowed sixty cents a day for each patient in the hospital, and has recently so extended the order as to include regimental as well as division hospitals, there is still continuous appeal to the Red Cross for a variety of things, which those in charge of the hospital fund do not feel warranted in buying, and as yet few of the regiments have gotten their hospitals into shape to ask for anything. As they move to Savannah in a few days, they will not be in condition to draw any money for weeks to come. ”

“ For the fifty women who fought day by day that grim battle with disease and death could but have wrung their hands in hopeless impotence had it not been for the hundreds of other women by whose aid we were able to carry on our work. One could have no more eloquent testimony to this than that furnished by a walk through one of the fever wards of Detention Hospital, where the men lay on Red Cross cots, in Red Cross pajamas, covered by Red Cross sheets and blankets, and taking their Red Cross medicines or broth or delicacies from Red Cross cups and glasses at the hands of Red Cross nurses. ”

“ On January 6th the German Red Cross dispatched for Southern Italy a number of physicians, trained nurses and relief corps men with the equipment of a field hospital. The party proceeded from Naples first to Catania, where the Austrians were rendering efficient assistance and where a number of Greek ships, flying the Red Cross flag, were acting as hospital ships, so it continued directly on to Syracuse, and was there put in charge of a hospital established in a large barracks. In the same barracks the Red Cross of Brescia was in charge of a hospital and another was under a Florentine personnel. ”

“ There is an ample installation of lavatories with running water, baths with hot and cold douches, and Turkish baths. Turkish latrines have been fitted in the annexes of the palace. Natives do the laundry work and ironing.
Special Quarters.—The Red Cross Hospital is provided with a spacious, well-lighted theatre for operations, and all the necessary apparatus. In a neighbouring ward a powerful fumigating stove, built by natives after a French model, enables instruments and dressings to be completely sterilised. ”

“ A beautiful thought of a wise and generous woman, like a fruitful seed, has blossomed and borne fruit in an ideal, modern hospital, just completed and given to the people of San Mateo.
Thursday, February 11, 1909, was a red letter day in the annals of this lovely little California town, for on that day was formally opened St. Matthew’s Red Cross Hospital, built and equipped by Mrs. Whitelaw Reid in memory of her mother.
It was a happy combination of circumstances that made it possible for four officers of the Red Cross to be present at the opening: Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, Hon. ”

“ So it was arranged that the Red Cross should take hold of the Cuban hospital the next day and do what it could to make it healthier and pleasanter; although the surgeons in charge begged that the ladies, i.e., the nurses, should not come until the place had been cleaned. But Red Cross nurses are trained in a school that makes the annihilation of dirt its first principle; and early the following morning they appeared with pails, scrubbing brushes, soap, whitewash and disinfectants, and the way in which they went to work elicited the admiration and astonishment of all who saw them. ”

“ Thanks to the Army Medical Service and to the Quartermaster General’s Department twenty-two hospital tents, with a complete equipment of cots, tables, chairs, oil stoves and field hospital chests for all of these stations, was procured. It is always a great help as well as a pleasure to have the Army as an assistant in any Red Cross work, and too much praise cannot be given to the efficient and prompt assistance its officers are always ready to render the Red Cross. ”

“ Then there were the things for which the Medical Corps frankly made no provision, which could have no place in a strictly military programme, such as food delicacies of great cost, special articles of clothing, and amusements. Every hospital convalescent ward had its phonograph, its checker-boards, its chess-sets, and its dominoes. That was the Red Cross. ”

“ Siboney, Cuba, July 23, 1898.
This is to certify that Dr. A. Monae Lesser, surgeon-in-chief of the American National Red Cross, offered his services to the Medical Department of the army on the twenty-ninth day of June. From the latter date to the present day Dr. Lesser has been connected with this hospital as a surgeon and patient. When the wounded commenced to arrive on July 1, and during the rush of work which lasted four days in the care of the wounded, Dr. Lesser was assigned one of the six tables in the operating room. His work was skillful and most continuous. ”

“ Although not here as a hospital ship by any means, nor legitimately fitted for the work, still we have some hospital supplies, a few intelligent workers, skill, intrepidity, experience, the willingness to serve, the readiness to obey, and I believe, the true spirit of the Red Cross, that seeks to help humanity wherever its needs exist. ”

“ Among these privates of the Hospital Corps who constitute the Red Cross organization of the regular military service, and who are non-combatants in accordance with the terms of the Geneva Convention, we have many medical students and even graduates in medicine.
I have made an exception with reference to sending female nurses to Cuba in view of the outbreak of yellow fever in Santiago, and am now sending immune nurses, both male and female, for duty at the yellow fever hospitals. ”

“ Patients’ cottages have electric call bells to summon the nurse, and electric lights are supplied from the City Hospital plant. A bath house is now being erected, providing separate bath rooms for male and female patients.
Adjoining the City Hospital grounds the Flower Mission—a private charity partially supported by public funds—maintains a hospital for incurables. It is the only place in the State where hopeless cases are received. The Flower Mission nurses also minister to the relief of tuberculosis patients at their homes. ”