...tells of conditions at 2/9th Australian General Hospital in Port Moresby during the Kokoda track fighting.
[A female veteran faces the camera.]
HELEN McCALLUM: And our convalescent patients used to help us with the care of the wards as far as the sweeping and the watering. And we used to rely on them to help us with a number of things because our staff was fairly short. And if they had a friend who was not very well, they would sit beside him and give him his drinks and hold his cigarette for him and things like that.
They were very courageous, they were very bright and humorous, they were very supportive of each other, they were very supportive of us and we all got on very well. And there was a lot of fun and games and, you know, sort of casual talk up and down the wards.
It was a wonderful atmosphere and I had a great admiration for those men. They were so brave, they put up with the discomforts. And they actually put on weight while they were in hospital. Our meals mightn't be very good, but away from the tensions of fighting conditions and getting regular meals, they would actually put on weight. We had one patient who was very, very thin and the men called him the 'greyhound pup'. And they were going to win all sorts of races with the greyhound pup. And they said after a while, "Sis, you'll have to cut down on his food, he's putting on too much weight."
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