The Australian Army Medical Corps in Egypt / An Illustrated and Detailed Account of the Early Organisation and Work of the Australian Medical Units in Egypt in 1914-1915

by Sir James W. Barrett; P. E. Deane

CHAPTER XI

POSTSCRIPT

CLOSURE OF AUSTRALIAN HOSPITALS—THE FLY CAMPAIGN—VENEREAL DISEASES—Y.M.C.A. AND RED CROSS—MULTIPLICITY OF FUNDS—PROPHYLAXIS—CONDITION OF RECRUITS ON ARRIVAL—HOSPITAL ORGANISATION—THE HELP GIVEN BY ANGLO-EGYPTIANS.

One of us (J. W. B.) was invalided to England in the middle of November 1915, and returned to Egypt at the end of March 1916.

He resigned his commission in the Australian Army Medical Corps on February 28, and was appointed temporary Lt.-Col. in the R.A.M.C. on February 29. On his return to Egypt he was appointed Consulting Aurist to the Forces in Egypt, and was a member of the Council of the British Red Cross Society and of the Y.M.C.A. He consequently had an opportunity of witnessing the termination of many of the arrangements for which he had been in part originally responsible, and desires to make brief reference to them.

No. 1 Australian General Hospital with its many off-shoots, including the four auxiliary hospitals and the venereal disease hospital, was located in Egypt for periods of twelve to eighteen months. No. 2 Australian General Hospital was in Egypt about fourteen months. Yet it was stated that each and every one of these hospitals when established were to be temporarily located in Egypt for a few weeks. Luna Park, i.e. No. 1 Auxiliary Hospital, was in existence approximately sixteen months. An enormous number of sick and wounded, said to be 18,000, was passed through it with an infinitesimal death-rate, viz. four or five persons. Since the end of 1915, the No. 3 Australian General Hospital was moved from Mudros to the Barracks at Abbassia, Cairo. The expenditure necessary to fit the barracks for the reception of No. 3 Australian General Hospital and the time taken are very interesting, since they show how utterly impossible any such arrangement would have been during the inrush of wounded in 1915. Stress is laid on the value of auxiliary hospitals as the only practicable means of surmounting difficulties at that time, in the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Administration of the Australian Branch British Red Cross in Egypt.

Looking back at the practical conclusion of the work of the Australian Army Medical Corps in Egypt, it is quite evident that the policy originally adopted was the only one possible in the circumstances, and the results have fully justified it.