Day: September 28, 2022

Question Time.

Question Time has just started on the telly again on BBC One just last week on Thursday night and it was really good. It was the first episode since after the summer and summer holidays and it is back on again this Thursday to and this is a picture of last weeks Question Time episode.

British Red Cross in WW1

Following the start of the ‘Great War’ in 1914, the British Red Cross joined forces with the Order of St. John Ambulance to form the Joint War committee. They pooled resources and formed Voluntary Aid Detachments (or VADs) with members trained in First Aid, Nursing, Cookery, Hygiene and Sanitation. These detachments all worked under the protection of the Red Cross, working in hospitals, rest stations, work parties and supply centres. The Joint War committee also provided assistance at the front line, supplying the first motorised ambulances to the battlefields, which were significantly more efficient then the horse drawn ambulances they replaced. The Joint War Committee was also active in setting up centres for recording the wounded and missing in action. Red Cross volunteers searched towns, villages and hospitals where fighting had occurred, noting names of the missing, the injured and the dead. This formed the basis of the international Message and Tracing service, still running today. Voluntary Aid Detachment The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary organisation providing field nursing services, mainly in hospitals, in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The organisation’s most important periods of operation were during World War I and World War II. The organisation was founded in 1909 with the help of the Red Cross and Order of St. John. By the summer of 1914 there were over 2,500 Voluntary Aid Detachments in Britain. Each individual volunteer was called a detachment, or simply a VAD. Of the 74,000 VADs in 1914, two-thirds were women and girls. At the outbreak of the First World War VADs eagerly offered their service to the war effort. The British Red Cross was reluctant allowing civilian women a role in overseas hospitals: most VADs were of the middle and upper classes and unaccustomed to hardship and traditional hospital discipline. Military authorities would not accept VADs at the front line. Katharine Furse took two VADs to France in October 1914, restricting them to serve as canteen workers and cooks. Caught under fire in a sudden battle the VADs were pressed into emergency hospital service and acquitted themselves well. The growing shortage of trained nurses opened the door for VADs in overseas military hospitals. Furse was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the VAD and restrictions were removed. Female volunteers over the age of twenty-three and with more than three months’ hospital experience were accepted for overseas service. VADs were an uneasy addition to military hospitals’ rank and order. They lacked the advanced skill and discipline of professional trained nurses and were often critical of the nursing profession. Relations improved as the war stretched on: VADs increased their skill and efficiency and trained nurses were more accepting of the VADs’ contributions. During four years of war 38,000 VADs worked in hospitals and served as ambulance drivers and cooks. VADs served near the Western Front and in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. VAD hospitals were also opened in most large towns in Britain. Later, VADs were also sent to the Eastern Front. They provided an invaluable source of bedside aid in the war effort. Many were decorated for distinguished service.

On a personal note my Grandfather served in WW1 Northumberland Fusiliers and he told my Mum if the Red Cross parcels had not arrived the soldiers would have starved. No food was getting through as Merchant ships travelling to Europe to feed the allied soldiers were being sunk by German torpedoes and war ships. Even if they got the supplies to land then they had the problems of relaying the food in trucks which were being attacked on the roads.

Me And Jonathan Edwards At My City And Guilds Presentation At Durham College In January 2011.

This is when I got my City And Guilds certificate presented to me by Jonathan Edwards at Durham College in January 2011 when I was twenty four years old when I was in my mid twenties when I was younger. It was at my City And Guilds presentation and it’s one of my favourite photos and the presentation was in the big hall at Durham College.

Medical Services during WW1

Medical care throughout the First World War was largely the responsibility of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). The RAMC’s job was both to maintain the health and fighting strength of the forces in the field and ensure that in the event of sickness or wounding they were treated and evacuated as quickly as possible.

Every battalion had a medical officer, assisted by at least 16 stretcher-bearers. The medical officer was tasked with establishing a Regimental Aid Post near the front line. From here, the wounded were evacuated and cared for by men of a Field Ambulance in an Advanced Dressing Station.

The hospitals set up immediately behind the lines were often housed in tents during the First World War, including wards and operating theatres.

This was particularly true of Casualty Clearing Stations, with base hospitals further away from the fighting sometimes making use of existing or more permanent buildings.

A casualty then travelled by motor or horse ambulance to a Casualty Clearing Station. These were basic hospitals and were the closest point to the front where female nurses were allowed to serve. Patients were usually transferred to a stationary or general hospital at a base for further treatment. A network of ambulance trains and hospital barges provided transport between these facilities, while hospital ships carried casualties evacuated back home to ‘Blighty’.

As well as battle injuries inflicted by shells and bullets, the First World War saw the first use of poison gas. It also saw the first recognition of psychological trauma, initially known as ‘shell shock‘. In terms of physical injury, the heavily manured soil of the Western Front encouraged the growth of tetanus and gas gangrene, causing medical complications. Disease also flourished in unhygienic conditions, and the influenza epidemic of 1918 claimed many lives.

Understanding shell shock and its treatments

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an important health risk factor for military personnel deployed in modern warfare. In World War I this condition (then known as shell shock or ‘neurasthenia’) was such a problem that ‘forward psychiatry’ was begun by French doctors in 1915. Some British doctors tried general anaesthesia as a treatment (ether and chloroform), while others preferred application of electricity. Four British ‘forward psychiatric units’ were set up in 1917. Hospitals for shell shocked soldiers were also established in Britain, including (for officers) Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh; patients diagnosed to have more serious psychiatric conditions were transferred to the Royal Edinburgh Asylum. Towards the end of 1918 anaesthetic and electrical treatments of shell shock were gradually displaced by modified Freudian methods psychodynamic intervention. The efficacy of ‘forward psychiatry’ was controversial. In 1922 the War Office produced a report on shell shock with recommendations for prevention of war neurosis. However, when World War II broke out in 1939, this seemed to have been ignored. The term ‘combat fatigue’ was introduced as breakdown rates became alarming, and then the value of pre-selection was recognised. At the Maudsley Hospital in London in 1940 barbiturate abreaction was advocated for quick relief from severe anxiety and hysteria, using i.v. anaesthetics: Somnifaine, paraldehyde, Sodium Amytal. ‘Pentothal narcosis’ and ‘narco-analysis’ were adopted by British and American military psychiatrists. However, by 1945 medical thinking gradually settled on the same approaches that had seemed to be effective in 1918. The term PTSD was introduced in 1980. In the UK the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for management (2005) recommend trauma-focussed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and consideration of antidepressants.