Description
Title: Voluntary Aid Detachments in Peace and War
Author: Goodman, Rupert
Condition: Near Mint
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1991
ISBN: 086439117
Cover: Hard Cover without Dust Jacket – 231 pages
Comments: The history of Voluntary Aid Detachments in Australia during the 20th century, including service overseas in both world wars.
The primary role of a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) member was that of nursing orderly in hospitals, carrying out menial but essential tasks – scrubbing floors, sweeping, dusting and cleaning bathrooms and other areas, dealing with bedpans, and washing patients. They were not employed in military hospitals, except as ward and pantry maids; rather, they worked in Red Cross convalescent and rest homes, canteens, and on troop trains.
At the start of the First World War, Australian VADs were restricted from traveling overseas by the Defence Council. As a result, many chose to travel on their own initiative and join British detachments, often in Australian Hospitals. It is reported that the 1st Australian Auxiliary Hospital included in their nursing staff some 120 VADs, chiefly Australians in the British service, employed through the Australian Red Cross Society. This policy was changed in 1916 after a request from Great Britain, and the first detachment of thirty official Australian VADs to serve overseas left Australia in September 1916.
The role of VADs did not significantly evolve between the wars. VADs in the Second World War were given more medical training, but they were not fully qualified nurses. They worked in convalescent hospitals, on hospital ships and the blood bank as well as on the home front. In 1943, the government created the Australian Women’s Auxiliary Service (AWAS) to control the large numbers of VADs employed by the military.
Signed by Author
Includes the names of those members in each VAD detachment
