) The
attendant sergeant promptly picks a metal ticket from a rack and lays
it on the stretcher. The ticket has, punched on it, the number of the
patient's ward and the number of the patient's bed in that ward. This
ceremony completed, the orderlies proceed, with their burden, up the
aisle between the beds in the receiving hall.
Arrived at the bed, they lower their stretcher until it is at such a
level that the patient, if he is active enough, can move off it on to
the bed; if he is too weak to help himself he is lifted on to the bed by
orderlies under the direction of the receiving-hall Sister. The
stretcher is promptly removed and restored to its ambulance. If the
patient is in an exceptionally suffering condition he is not placed on
the receiving-hall bed; instead--the Medical Officer having given his
permission--his stretcher is put on a wheeled trolley and he is taken
straight away to his ward, so that he will only undergo one shift of
position between the ambulance and his destination. The majority of
stretcher-cases, however, reach us in a by no means desperate state,
for, as I say, they seldom come to England without having been treated
previously at a base abroad (except during the periods of heavy
fighting).
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