| Brief Description |
This New Zealand Army Nursing Service medal is a circular silver disc consisting of a Turkish coin which has had one side filed down and engraved with the inscription ''22/3 / VIDA MACLEAN / N.Z.A.M.S. / 10.9.1914 PRES.". This medal was presented to Sister Vida Mary Katie MacLean, RRC, a nurse and a New Zealand Army nursing servicewoman.
Trained at Wanganui Hospital as a nurse, Vida MacLean served with the Army Nursing Service in Samoa and Egypt during World War I. At the outbreak of war, hundreds of nurses from all over New Zealand volunteered for the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, keen to go to war and “do their bit for New Zealand” and “home”.
From August 1914 to March 1915 Sister MacLean was attached to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and served in Samoa. She then served in Cairo and then in the No.1 New Zealand General Hospital at Brockenhurst in England where she rose to be Matron.
Sister MacLean was mentioned in dispatches twice, in 1916 and 1918. Nurses proved their worth at the front and in the large hospitals that cared for the thousands and thousands of wounded and ill.
|
