article · Part of No. 11, December 1948, English section (pages 1–13) · p. 4 p. 5

The Activity of the Lebanese Red Cross

ACTIVITE DE LA CROIX-ROUGE LIBANAISE

It would be rash to attempt to describe in a few lines the many activities of the Lebanese Red Cross, although it dates only from July 1945. We shall therefore confine ourselves to a simple general survey.

It may be said, without false modesty, that these three years have surpassed every hope. To begin with, the work was divided into various branches, among them the committee of dispensaries and milk stations, the mobile ambulances, the School of Nursing, the Soldier's Home, the Public Assistance Committee, the workrooms, the summer camp, the tracing bureau, the regional committees, and finally the Entertainments Committee and the Secretariat. To this must be added a new and no less important task, which is aid to the refugees from Palestine.

Having started from a single dispensary, the Lebanese Red Cross at present possesses 16 dispensaries, 4 of them in Beirut, together with a milk station; a dispensary and a milk station at Zahleh; a dispensary at Rayak, another at Baalbeck, 2 at Tripoli, and one at Halba, one at Damour, one at Jounieh, one at Ain-Zhalta, one at Furn-el-Chebak, one at Beit-el-Dine, and one at Saida. The dispensaries are directed by regional committees. Physicians specializing in all the branches of medicine and surgery provide a daily service. 110,930 patients have been treated to date, 39,963 medicines administered free of charge, and 537 patients hospitalized in the various hospitals of the city. The patients' names are entered on cards which make it possible to follow the course of the illness. The management of the dispensaries also looks after expectant mothers. The milk station provides the daily ration of the dispensary's regular visitors, who have already received some 70,350 liters of pasteurized milk. In addition to milk and medicines, staples of first necessity, such as rice, sugar, soap, meat, and clothing, are distributed to the sick.

The clothing and the layettes are made in the Red Cross's own workroom: 2,500 smocks intended for the free schools, as well as 3,000 layettes for the babies of soldiers and civilians.

Social inquiries are carried out by the nurses of the Red Cross in the various quarters of the city; their purpose is to give the families of the working classes notions of hygiene and to bring them moral and material aid.

The Ambulance Committee was created to provide medical and material relief to regions far from any medical center. The ambulance rounds are made twice a week with 2 doctors and several nurses, equipped with a complete medical kit, medicines, provisions, and clothing. This service has come to the aid of more than 9,600 sick. The School of Nursing, on which the mobile ambulances directly depend, comprises 3 years of study and 2 months of practical training distributed over the three years, after which the nurse obtains a State diploma enabling her, if need be, to direct a hospital. The School also undertakes to supply first-aid workers and first-aid assistants, as well as trained children's nurses.

All this little world is governed by the office of the Secretariat, which performs a task of centralization among the different sections and the regional committees.

To all this work has been added aid to the Palestinians — and that is saying no small thing. It was necessary to answer the appeal of these unfortunates who had left country, homes, and possessions, and who, moreover, were threatened by all the epidemics that follow upon war. The L.R.C. has taken upon itself, in large part, to house them, feed them, clothe them, and above all to care for them. Several dispensaries and milk stations, among them that of the Quarantaine, were created solely for this purpose. At present, one of the L.R.C.'s premises has been converted as a matter of urgency into a milk station. It is there that the milk is pasteurized and the bottles sterilized which must feed more than 3,000 babies and children in Beirut, Baalbeck, Saida, Tyre, etc. Distribution is made daily in the various refugee camps.

A mail service has been set up at the office of the L.R.C. 2,450 messages have been sent by these refugees to Palestine.

The L.R.C. has extended its field of action as far as Palestine itself, where it founded a hospital at St. John of Acre, provided with a surgeon and a physician, 2 nurses, and 2 stretcher-bearers, one of whom fell a victim to duty while gathering up the wounded on the battlefield. In spite of every difficulty, the hospital continued to function for 3 months, sheltering hundreds of wounded and sick. Nearly 150 of the wounded were operated upon.

Aid to the refugees demands of the L.R.C. constant effort and a careful organization which seeks always to perfect itself, so as to relieve human misery as far as possible and to serve its country.

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