Brave Serbia has not been forgotten in her hour of need by the women
of England. For the Women's Imperial Service League, with Mrs. St.
Clair Stobart as directress, went out to Serbia under the aegis of the
Serbian Relief Fund, after arduous work out in Antwerp and after at
Cherbourg. Mrs. Stobart decided that ours should be a Field Hospital
owing to typhus and other fever raging in the country.
We left on April 1, 1915, on the Admiralty transport _Saidieh_ for
Salonica. The staff consisted of Mrs. St. Clair Stobart as directress,
Mr. J.H. Greenhalgh as treasurer, a secretary, seven women doctors,
eighteen trained nurses, four trained cooks, one dispenser, one
sanitary inspector, an English chaplain and fourteen orderlies, of
which some were chauffeurs.
The Field Hospital was perfectly equipped; everything we took with us.
We had over sixty tents, 300 beds, with every necessary for them;
bales of clothes for wounded and the civil population; the kitchen
requisites, with four excellent cooking stoves with ovens; several
portable boilers for hot water; large tanks for cold water; laundry
equipments; medical stores; over L300 of food-stuffs; X-ray; all
sanitary necessaries; motor ambulances. Our Field Hospital was to be
at Kragujevatz; the tents were soon pitched and well arranged.
We had the following tents: one for X-ray, operating theatre; one to
receive the patients; a large mess tent for patients and one for
staff; one for linen--laundry; two kitchens--one for patients and one
for staff; dispensary; food stores; a recreation tent for the staff,
and one for the doctors; then there were lavatory and bath tents; the
rest were wards and for the staff to sleep in. Our Hospital was soon
full. I was the head of the kitchen departments, and I looked after
the catering and food stores. I was very happy with my staff, in spite
of the work being hard and the hours long, but we knew that we were
doing good to our fellow-countrymen.
Mrs. Stobart and the doctors found that the civil population was
suffering terribly owing to the war, as there was a scarcity of
doctors and no proper hospitals to send them to; and as we were trying
to stamp out all disease before fighting started again, it was decided
that we should have some roadside dispensaries and a civil hospital
for all the worst cases. Arrangements were made that Dr. May should
return to England to raise funds for more equipments. We also wanted
more doctors, nurses and cooks. It did not take long before everything
was forthcoming. Seven dispensaries were started and excellent work
was accomplished in quite a short time. Over one hundred people
attended the dispensaries most days, and over eleven thousand of the
poor suffering population were soon relieved from their pain and
suffering.