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CHAPTER 11 "Ready, Aye Ready": Canadian Military Nurses as an Expandable and Expendable Workforce (1920-2000) Cynthia Toman TI he majority of Canadian military nurses, I known by rank and title as Nursing Sisters and ,JL» later as Nursing Officers, served in the armed forces "for the duration" only. With few exceptions, military nursing has been primarily a temporary role. Although the need for nurses in the Armed Forces increased dramatically during times of war and crisis, there were very few permanent positions between wars and few opportunities for military nurses to maintain the full range of professional skills associated with civilian nursing. The episodic nature of military nursing practice was problematic for the civilian profession since the Armed Forces relied on the profession as an expandable workforce to "fill the ranks" whenever nurses were needed. The civilian nursing profession was responsible for training and accrediting nurses who could and would fill both civilian and military needs, while guarding against an overproduction of nurses and the resulting severe unemployment when wars and crises ended. The episodic demand for increased numbers of nurses led to considerable anxiety and tension within the profession, especially during the Second World War when the largest number of nurses enlisted and served overseas. This chapter examines the Canadian military nursing experience since 1920 as nurses built upon the strong traditions inherited from the Nursing Sisters who served during the First World War, negotiated their own positions within the highly gendered military establishment, and made difficult choices about the return to civilian practice environments when their military service ended. Active recruitment of military nurses was never necessary in Canada — unlike the situation in the United States, Great Britain, and South Africa. Even before Canada declared war in August 1939, the Executive Secretary of the Canadian Nurses Association, Jean Wilson, confidently assured the government that "there would be an immediate rush by nurses to answer 'The Call' for their professional services." Nurses would answer, "...'Ready, aye ready' to any emergency call."1 And they did. Canadian nurses volunteered in numbers that far exceeded all available positions, in all Armed Forces branches, throughout the six years of war. Indeed, a moratorium was placed on their enlistment and the waiting list grew to an estimated 8000 names. As Nursing Sister (NS) Mary Bower explained, "We all were trying to get in the Army or Air Force or anything. We tried to go to Africa! Anything to get in the armed forces."2 Other nurses chose to serve with the American , British, or South African forces rather than risk "missing the war." Nursing Officer (NO) Lee Anne Quinn echoed similar enthusiasm for military nursing more than 50 years later, calling her deployment to Somalia in 1994 "the high point in my nursing career."3 Figure 1 Medal Set, Colonel Elizabeth Smellie Royal Red Cross 1914-1915 Star; British War Medal, 1914-1919; Victory Medal, 1914-1919; Oak Leaf (Mentioned-inDespatches ); Canadian Volunteer Service Medal; War Medal, 1939-1945; King George V Jubilee Medal; and Canadian Centennial Medal Canadian War Museum, 20000105-049 Filling the Ranks At the end of the First World War, official plans called for an establishment of 25 permanent force nursing positions and a reserve force of 1110 nurses. But due to economic recessions and the Great Depression, there were only 12 permanent force nursing positions during the interwar years, and a mere 363 nurses' names on the reserve list at the end of the 1930s. These 12 interwar Nursing Sisters worked as supervisors and administrators within district military hospitals . They taught first aid to non-commissioned soldiers, known as "other ranks," who became medical assistants and stretcher bearers in field ambulance units. During the 1930s, a few Nursing Sisters served in converted military camps that became labour camps for unemployed men on relief. NS Elizabeth Pense claimed there was a ratio of "five Army patients to fifty unemployed patients" in these camps, and described "lots of pneumonia among the men arriving right off the trains."4 Reserve Nursing Sisters were "called out" on short notice for emergencies, such as a 1924 influenza outbreak at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. They could be posted for summer training camp duty, but military training was greatly curtailed due to the recessions. The only field training for medical units was held at Camp Borden on the eve of the Second World War in 1938. Meanwhile, reserve nurses depended on private duty nursing income while hoping for a vacancy within...

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