Working in the Hospital

Heroes Remember

Working in the Hospital

Transcript

Yeah but we're trained to do that and we're doing something that you loved to do and you're helping people. I mean we could relieve pain. We were getting them help, getting them to the doctors. We were helping the doctors to keep track of everything and when we were first up there and we operated on everybody and we have a big British chest unit with us and they did all the big chest cases, it was a special unit and we did all the general surgery. And mostly right at first if we operated on everybody, and then we would, they would be sent to field hospitals in England or base hospitals. We got rid of them. And everybody, except, if we could get them ready to go back in the front line within seven days, we kept them. So we had a continual change, change of patients. They just came in by the car load. We were all doing the best we could, let's put it that way. So your morale was high. I loved it all. We worked hard, but we had good fun. It was tough sometimes, but you were too busy, to be too upset about something. I mean, now, some of the German kids that came in, fourteen years old, they're kids, I mean that was tough. Some of them pretty awful, but no matter what one you looked like, looked at, somebody else was worse, you might say all the time, and there is such a complete change. Ah, now here I was with 100, 125 ward, and I had one nurse on night duty and a couple of orderlies. You couldn't see everything. You never stopped. Yeah but you weren't the only one that was working hard. The doctors were working hard. The orderlies were working hard. The boys were working very hard and they were damn glad to get into a clean bed.

Description

Mrs. Page talks about what the work in the hospitals was like.

Nancy de Boise Page

Mrs. Page was born in Saint John, New Brunswick. Her father was a doctor and her mother a nurse. Mrs. Page recalls going to the hospital with her father when she was young and knowing early on that nursing was her calling. She trained at the Royal Victoria in Montreal and in 1942 joined the army as a Nursing Sister. She served overseas in England, France and Belgium loving every moment she was able to help the soldiers. Following the war Mrs. Page returned to Queen Mary's Veterans Hospital in Montreal to continue nursing Canadian Veterans.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:44
Person Interviewed:: Nancy de Boise Page
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Northwest Europe
Branch:: Army
Occupation:: Nursing Sister

Language selection

Working in the Hospital

Heroes Remember