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They were Prepared 08
HOLLAND
Gorinchem
TYPHOID had broken out in the neighbour- hood of Rotterdam. It was imperative that the epidemic should be got under control and localised. Within forty-eight hours of receiving the S.O.S., the G.I.S. Mobile Hospital team, with the laboratory section attached, had converted a school in Gorinchem into a hospital, and were ready to receive patients from the neighbouring villages on the outskirts of Rotterdam.
Then began a strenuous and unremitting struggle. Typhoid is one of the most difficult of all illnesses to deal with, entailing as it does unceasing care and watchfulness. Bed-linen, utensils and everything that comes in contact with the patient is highly infectious and must be sterilised; no patient may be discharged until he or she is completely immune. Neither of the team's medical officers had dealt until now with a typhoid epidemic. The patients were farmers and artisans from thirty nearby villages, speaking only a local dialect. These peasants were in a poor state of health, debilitated, undernourished, and sometimes suffering from more definite illnesses. Often it took days to prove by tests that a man, woman or child had typhoid. The nurses had to give suitable treatment until the tests showed positive re- actions: the medical officers had cause to bless the laboratory unit, which proved or disproved their suspicions.
The team could not get everything they needed automatically through official channels. On one occasion they needed three pints of blood urgently for a transfusion. Three members went in search of it. In the appropriate centre they found apparatus but no stored plasma. They called for donors on the spot, drove them to the hospital in Utrecht, and returned to Gorinchem in four hours with the three pints of blood. Whatever improbable item a driver set out to find she returned with it in the end, even if she did not return till midnight.
The first typhoid patient being carried into the G.I.S. hospital at Gorinchem
Transport kept the lines of communication open here, as elsewhere, in every conceivable way. The vehicles and their drivers collected food rations, medical supplies, mail, petrol; general equipment; patients; milk, fruit and vegetables from farms. They took bedding to and from the town laundry; surgical drums to and from the local hospital; saw that the local ferry, used for carrying ambulances across the river, had sufficient coal to keep working. Often hundreds of miles had to be driven in one day.
The nurses were no less busy, caring for people in a comatose state, often having to be fed artificially; serving meals every two hours; giving mouth washes every four hours; remem- bering to wash their hands in disinfectant each time they handled a patient; attending the doctor on her rounds; dealing with emergencies and special dressings; admitting new patients; marking, checking and disinfecting clothes. At the end of the day there were no hot baths— only water from the boilers to be used for washing in a basin in their own rooms; no chance of a swim, since the river was out of bounds for fear of contamination; no fresh salads, vegetables or fruit to eat, nor milk to drink because of the danger of infection; no other British units with whom they could pass the time of day.
And for the doctors there was the full responsibility not only of diagnosing the illness and of seeing the patient through it; but also of making quite sure that no patient was discharged who could possibly re-infect others. Four months after its outbreak the typhoid epidemic had been overcome, the team had lost only twelve of their hundred and twenty- two patients through death, and practically all the patients had returned to their homes or had been transferred to local infectious hospitals. The team were now free to follow the other voluntary relief teams into Germany.
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