Ostrovo Unit
Dr Agnes Elizabeth Lloyd Bennett, an Australian, New Zealand doctor had travelled to London in May 1916, and met with Elsie Inglis at the Lyceum club.
Bennett travelled to Scotland to recruit 55 staff members and organise supplies, including the fleet of model-T Fords which were to be converted to Ambulances for an attached transport column, initially commanded by English suffragist Katherine Harley.
Bennett took discipline seriously, and she was concerned by the behaviour of the women in Harley's unit who she felt were unruly, After three months the transport column was also placed under her authority.
The Anglo-Irish medical physicist Edith Anne Stoney provided x-ray support to the unit while being based at Salonika.
Australian doctor Lilian Violet Cooper, who was born in Britain, but had spent the last 25 years living in Queensland, travelled to Europe to volunteer with the SWH with her long-term companion Mary Josephine Bedford, arriving at the Ostrovo unit in September 1916. Cooper was the third surgeon to join the unit, and Bedford, who had mechanical knowledge, managed the ambulance fleet, becoming the Chief Transport Officer.
Cooper was a skilled surgeon, who was popular in the unit, especially with the young ambulance drivers, as she encouraged their new found freedom to wear trousers, cut their hair short, and take up smoking.
These freedoms alleviated the difficulty of their work, transporting seriously wounded and dying patients along very rough and rocky trails, fixing the ambulances when broken down, or getting them un-bogged from deep potholes.
So in late 1916, Bennett received permission from the local Serbian commander to open a dressing station, a small tent hospital of 25 beds, at Dobraveni, closer to the fighting, where their staff would be rotated every 6 weeks, due to the intensity of the work, and the freezing conditions.
[2] British masseuse and trained physical instructor, Olive Smith who had joined the unit with Dr Bennett from the start, and worked in the operating theatre and reception, died of malaria on 6 October 1916.
In February 2017 a new recruit, Australian doctor Mary De Garis from Melbourne, arrived at the Ostrovo unit, and in her first month she alleviated Cooper from her rotation shift at Dobraveni.
De Garis found the constant air raids added a 'spice of excitement' to life, and the trenches, or 'funk holes' provided effective shelter.
De Garis's anxiety for him saw her travel to London, arriving on 14 July 1916, to take a role at the Manor War Hospital, as a means to be closer to him.
On her journey from London, she travelled through Paris, Turin, Rome, and Taranto, before boarding a troop transport carrying 3000 men, with only two other women, destined for Salonika.
When they had free time, she would join the nurses for a swim in Lake Ostrovo, where she said they could be seen "dancing a spirited reel on the shores in their bathing tights".
Bennett, and De Garis, and the staff had to pay careful attention to establishing and maintaining hygienic latrines and urinals so that outbreaks of diseases such as dysentery and infection diarrhoea were minimised.
If anyone recorded a high temperature, they would immediately be administered with painful and dreaded intramuscular quinine injections, which was the most effective treatment at the time.
[12] Bennett was awarded a Serbian Order of St. Sava third class for her contributions as the Chief Medical Officer of the Ostrovo Unit in The SWH.
Practical experience has convinced me that women run things very well, making me a more ardent feminist than ever.”[2]De Garis was awarded a third class Order of St. Sava medal for her service.
[12] Following De Garis's resignation, Dr. Isobel Emslie became the third and final Chief Medical Officer, who led the unit to the end of the war.
