General hospital questions

[KRodgers]

Hello everyone

 

I have a few questions about auxiliary hospitals in England i would love some help with.

 

- Were they allowed visitors? If so how often?

- Did the Red cross collect knitted supplies etc from the public at auxiliary hospitals to send to the front line?

- Would men from the same unit be kept together in hospitals?

- Would men have been allowed out for day visits?

 

Thank you in advance!

 

Katie

[Moonraker]

Welcome to the Forum, Katie. Some of our members are very knowledgeable about auxiliary hospitals. Googling "Great War Forum auxiliary hospitals" will lead you to many threads - and probably far more information than you would ever want to know!

 

I  bow to those members' greater knowledge, but to answer your third question: men were sent to whichever hospital had spare beds.

 

As for your fourth: convalescent soldiers were allowed out in "hospital blue" uniforms but were subject to constraints, such as not being "treated" to drinks by well-wishers.

 

Sit back and await a great deal of info from others!

[Moonraker]

BUMP! I can't believe that other members haven't added to this thread. I would have expected a flow of contributions. Perhaps by now Katie has read some of the old threads. Her first question has been touched on before, though I wouldn't want to trace it, but I can't recall anything directly relating to the second. I think the answer may be probably not, but there's a cue there for people to say how comforts for the troops were provided.(I have some examples relating to the Canadians on Salisbury Plain in 1914-15 but Katie may be more interested in how gifts were sent overseas.)

[TEW]

Visiting.

Not sure I've ever seen evidence of patients having visitors at an auxiliary H. Although, no reason they would not have, I don't think any such restrictions were in place unless contagious.

 

Knitted Items.

Sorry, no idea.

 

Q3.

Already covered but EG. If say 10 men of a battalion were injured by a single shell explosion they could easily end up being admitted to different casualty clearing stations which means they are then moved on from there by a different ambulance train to a different base area to be loaded on a different ship and then arrive in UK at a different port. From there it's partly down to availability of hospital space but also down to railway organisation. In other words, a train may be scheduled for a Southampton to Manchester run but have to drop small groups off along the way. I doubt this system was perfect due to changing circumstances, poor communication etc.

 

Day's Out.

Not a lot of experience with Aux. Hospitals but main hospitals I do have experience of organised trips out for patients. Local well wishers would invite, fund, arrange or provide facilities and transport to take groups of patients to take tea, dance, sports events, Sunday walks, theatres, cinemas to name a few. This is quite a separate thing to patients getting passes for their own outings which also took place. Can't see why an auxiliary H would be any different.

TEW

[alf mcm]

Hello Katie,

  Welcome to the forum.

  The Red Cross and St. John Ambulance Brigade organised local Work Parties to make items for the troops, but I'm not sure about how these items got to the troops. I suspect that local knitters would hand in items to these work parties rather than Hospitals for further distribution.

Try your local county here for work parties;- https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Search?hosp=WORK+PARTY

This article on dog wool knitting may be of interest;-  https://blog.maryevans.com/2013/06/the-dog-wool-spinners-of-the-royal-academy.html

 

Regards,

 

Alf McM

[alf mcm]

There's a little bit more here on Work Parties;-  https://vad.redcross.org.uk/en/What-we-did-during-the-war

 

Regards,

 

Alf McM