Evening star., 1941-12-22
Emergency Hospital
Service Functioninq
In Great Britain
System Is Expected to
Meet All New War
Needs as They Arise
BY H. J. J. SARGENT,

Dy
Foreign Correspondent Of The Star and
Consolidated Press.
LONDON, Dec. 22.-It will not
be long now before we shall be
reaching the 1,000th day of the
war. One thousand days of blood
and tears and sweat, as Winston
Churchill put it, but also 1000 days
of national unity and effort un-
paralleled in the history OF this
land.
1t is of those who have become
casualties in this effort that should
like to write today.
1t is a truism that geographically
the whole of Britain and indeed all
Europe is in the fighting line. The
bomb makes no distinction between
those in uniform and those in multi.
It scatters them in little pieces or
1t burns them up with studied I'M
partiality. Therefore. the mech
anism of healing once reserved for
the fighting forces, naval, military
and air. must be extended to take
in practically every citizen who be-
comes a casualty.
Before war broke out, in the un-
certain days even before the Munich
agreement, there had been mstl-
tuted a so-called emergency hospital
scheme which was intended to take
care of the sick and wounded of the
three fighting services and of air
raid casualties. The part the hos
pitals were assigned to play was to
receive the thousands and even the
hundreds of thousands of casualties
when war broke out.
Unexpected Lull.
It must be remembered that very
heavy air attacks were anticipated
at the beginning of hostilities. The
enemy did not deliver those attacks
and there was an unexpected period
of lull during which this scheme
was added to and further elaborated.
Now the emergency hospital
scheme has become a machine which
is expected to meet all new war
needs as they arise. 1t has already
had some experience of an emer-
gency.
Ernest Brown, Minister of Health,
recently gave figures of the casual
ties that we're treated just year
ago. during the last four months of
1910. which were the months when
the heavy raids by the LuftWaffe
were delivered against this country. |
During those months the emergency
casualty services dealt with 81,414
patients in hospitals and flrst-aid
posts.
AS matter of fact the hospital |
services have never yet been
stretched out to their full capacity. |
BY bringing together municipal and |
voluntary hospitals for emergency
purposes under regional organiza-
tions there are about 100000 beds |
now available for victims of the |
war.
Service Has Grown Strong.
The emergency hospital service
has grown sufficiently strong to be
able to take over the care of cas-
ualties in the civil defense organi-
cations; men and women who have
sustained injuries in the execution
of their work as air wardens, fire
fighters and so on. Also, the vast
new industrial centers set up for
the production of war munitions of
all kinds with people living in billets |
and lodgings with no facilities for |
nursing and treatment are now
cared for under the scheme.
A great new departure from nor
NAL hospital administration is now
being worked out, again under the
scheme. 1t is called the rehabilita-
ton service and as Ernest Bevin
said the other day, the government
is determined to provide the very
best treatment that science could
devise to restore the bodies of men
and women shattered in or by the
war.
There are now four types Of re-
centers spread all over
England with a total of 426 estab-
llshments and more are in prepara-
ton. There are orthopaedic CEN
ters. two fracture departments des-
lgnated, respectively, A and B, and
fracture clinics. And these four
types cover between them the whole
field of fracture treatment, remedial
surgery, long and short stavs in
hospitals and post-hospital treat
ment when patients have returned
to their homes.
This rehabilitation organization
has probably come to stay In Eng