Academic literature on the topic 'Voluntary Aid Detachment (Great Britain)'

This paper discusses the change in women’s mentality towards the concept of war and their own role in it according to autobiographical sources such as was journals, diaries, letters or autobiographical novels authored by women who were present at the front during the Great War. The primary sources quoted in this analysis include letters and diaries from nurses who worked in Dr. Elsie Inglis’s Scottish Women’s Hospitals unit as well as the “testament” of Vera Mary Brittain, famous English Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse and writer and women’s rights activist. Among the secondary sources employed in the analysis are the seminal works of Christine E. Hallett, Maxine Alterio, Santanu Das, Eric J. Leed and Claire M. Tylee. Before arriving at a conclusion, the paper highlights important changes in women’s discourse towards the war as well as the way in which such changes were supported by the novel situation in which women found themselves, namely as active participants at the front, and their aspirations towards equal rights and equal treatment.

Abstract The experience of some 500 Canadian and Newfoundland women who served overseas as Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses during the Great War has been eclipsed by the British record. Sent as auxiliary assistants to trained nurses in the military hospitals, Canadian VADs confronted a complex mix of emotional, physical, and intellectual challenges, including their “colonial” status. As casually trained, inexperienced amateurs in an unfamiliar, highly structured hospital culture, they were often resented by the overworked and undervalued trained nurses, whose struggle for professional recognition was necessarily abandoned during the crisis of war. The frequently intimate physical needs of critically ill soldiers also demanded a rationalisation of the VAD's role as “nurse” within a maternalist framework that eased social tensions for both VAD and patient. As volunteers assisting paid practitioners, the Canadian VAD experience offers new insights into a critical era of women's developing professional identities.

AbstractAlthough the South African War was a colonial war, it aroused great interest abroad as a test of international morality. Both the Boer republics were signatories to the Geneva Convention of 1864, as was Britain, but the resources of these small countries were limited, for their populations were small and, before the discovery of gold in 1884, government revenues were trifling. It was some time before they could put even the most rudimentary organization in place. In Europe, public support from pro-Boers enabled National Red Cross Societies from such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, Russia and Belgium to send ambulances and medical aid to the Boers. The British military spurned such aid, but the tide of public opinion and the hospitals that the aid provided laid the foundations for similar voluntary aid in the First World War. Until the fall of Pretoria in June 1900, the war had taken the conventional course of pitched battles and sieges. Although the capitals of both the Boer republics had fallen to the British by June 1900, the Boer leaders decided to continue the conflict. The Boer military system, based on locally recruited, compulsory commando service, was ideally suited to guerrilla warfare, and it was another two years before the Boers finally surrendered. During this period of conflict, about 30,000 farms were burnt and the country was reduced to a wasteland. Women and children, black and white, were installed in camps which were initially ill-conceived and badly managed, giving rise to high mortality, especially of the children. As the scandal of the camps became known, European humanitarian aid shifted to the provision of comforts for women and children. While the more formal aid organizations, initiated by men, preferred to raise funds for post-war reconstruction, charitable relief for the camps was often provided by informal women's organizations. These ranged from church groups to personal friends of the Boers, to women who wished to be associated with the work of their menfolk.

Background: Extreme sports events are increasing in popularity, particularly in mountainous areas throughout Great Britain. Emergency medical care for these events is usually provided by voluntary organisations, providing event side first aid and referring patients to nearby District General Hospitals. The Fort William Mountain Bike Race is part of the UCI World Cup Series: 173 competitors racing in cross country, downhill and 4X events. The Belford Hospital provides year round medical care for the Lochaber community, which frequently swells during the tourist season. The hospital has 8300 new attendances per annum, 35 patient reviews per 24 hrs. Methods and Results: We have reviewed the impact of the event on the local hospital. In total 52 riders reported 61 injuries. The hospital treated 24 (14%) riders. Retrospective analysis of attendances has revealed 19 riders attended on race days, increasing attendees by up to 28%, 46% of injured riders were seen at the A&E department, 1 rider requiring admission for observation and 1 rider required inter-hospital transfer. Injury patterns (knee 20%, hand/wrist 18% & shoulder 18%) were similar to other reported series. Conclusions: We believe that extreme sports events can have considerable impact on small district general hospitals. Additional triage and staffing resources should be utilised and event organisers should anticipate the additional problems they present to the local community. District General Hospitals continue to provide a substantial contribution to the provision of health care for extreme sports within the UK.

Teaching and nursing were frequent career choices for unmarried, middle-class women in the Great War era, but only nurses were eligible for active service in Canadian military hospitals overseas. Teachers were expected to remain at home, volunteering for patriotic projects like other women. This role proved too passive for some, who relinquished their careers to become, temporarily, Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses (VADs); many served in British military hospitals overseas. The history of this unique group offers new insights into societal expectations for Canadian women’s professional work in the early twentieth century. The transformation of teachers into nurses during the crisis of war was legitimized by the substitution of gender and class attributes for specialized training, allowing women teachers the otherwise unattainable opportunity for active service abroad. Their experience raises important issues regarding the meaning of “professional identity” in traditional women’s occupations, and professional development later in the century.

This study recovers the history of Canada's Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses, or VADs, from their creation as a reserve of emergency auxiliary nursing assistants in 1914 under the aegis of the St. John Ambulance Association, to their demobilization and resettlement into peacetime civilian life to 1930. Canada's VAD plan was modelled on a British scheme initiated in 1909 in anticipation of war in Europe. Intended to supplement the domestic military medical services, the role of the Canadian VADs evolved with the advent of the war into fulltime nursing assistance. The research for the study is based on archival sources, including diaries, letters and pre-recorded narratives of VADs who served in Canada and overseas, official government documents, and those of the St. John Ambulance and Red Cross in Canada and Britain, who were responsible for the VAD organisation. In addition to manuscript sources of individuals involved in the VAD movement, the published records from contemporary books, memoirs, journals and newspapers were examined. This research permitted the identification of 808 Canadian VADs, out of an estimated 2,000 primarily young, single, middle-class Anglo-Protestant women, who served as nursing assistants, but also as ambulance drivers and support personnel. The study demonstrates the evolution of Canadian VADs as an extension of the nineteenth century voluntarist traditions of the women's movement. Through patriotic and maternalist ideology, VAD service was legitimised as a form of voluntary active service for women, equating to masculine military service. Excluded from Canada's military hospitals overseas, VADs served in military convalescent hospitals at home, and British military hospitals abroad. As volunteers, they challenged the professional aspirations of Canada's qualified graduate nurses, motivating them to seek regulation of the qualifications for nursing practice, and elevating the educational standards. Volunteering as a VAD offered Canadian women a singular opportunity for active war service. Previously overshadowed by British VAD experience, the study of Canada's VADs restores a dynamic organisation to the history of women and women's work, as well as contributing to scholarship in Canadian medical and military history.

This is the first monograph to be published on the work of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) in the Great War. The historiography of British military nursing during this period is scant, and research based monograph are negligible. What exists, does not focus specifically on the work of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, (QAIMNS) the Reserve, (QAIMNSR) or the Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS) but tends to concentrate on the work of the volunteer, untrained, Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses. Unfortunately, this has resulted in factually inaccurate representations of British WW1 nursing. The mass mobilisation of nurses by professional and voluntary nursing services led to rivalry between the different groups and my research addresses the relationship that develop between the trained and volunteer nurses. Also, my research examines the climatic and environmental conditions that impacted upon the effective delivery of nursing and casualty care and the mismanagement of services and supplies by the War Office and the Army Medical Services. Additionally, the political controversies and scandals over inadequate planning for the care, treatment and transportation of mass casualties is addressed. Furthermore, diseases and traumatic injuries sustained by nurses on active service are examined and, shell-shock, hitherto considered a combatants' condition is cited in relation to mental health issues of nurses on active service. Moreover, my research examines the deaths and disability rates within the ranks of nursing services. My research features individual awards for acts of bravery and mentioned in Dispatches. On the Home Front the politics of nursing are addressed. Nurses campaigned for professional recognition and many were supportive of universal suffrage and they argued for both professional and personal liberation. The struggle for professional recognition led to divisions within the civilian nursing leadership because they failed to arrive at a consensus on the content of the Nurse Registration Bill. Also, the supply of nurses for the war effort was consistently problematic and this led the Government to establish the Supply of Nurses Committee. Before it had its first sitting it had already become contentious and controversial. The issues are discussed. Using extensive primary sources, the monograph moves away from the myths, and uncritical and overly romanticised views of WW1 military nursing. It is hoped that by examining the personal, professional and political issues that impacted upon nurses the monograph will make a significant contribution to the historiography of WW1 military nursing and to the history of the Great War more generally.