They assisted in surgery and often had primary responsibility for cleaning post-surgical wounds and watching for secondary infections. As patients arrived by truck convoys or hospital trains, the nurses were among the first to meet wounded soldiers, administering pain medication, tetanus vaccines, cleaning wounds, and offering comfort as well as clean clothing and beds in which to rest. Nurses did not work in the front line trenches, although they were often close to the front. All were drawn from the major hospital training schools for nurses across Canada and the United States. In August 1914, Major Margaret Macdonald, one of the five CAMC nursing sisters and an experienced nurse from the South African War, received permission to enlist 100 nurses. The Canadian Army Medical Corps was established in 1904 with a nursing service under its umbrella, but had only five permanent members by the start of the First World War. Nurses had served under a special contract with the Canadian Militia on two occasions: during the 1885 Northwest Rebellion and the South African War (1899-1902). In January 1915, for instance, there were 2,000 applicants for 75 positions. All were volunteers and there was never a shortage of candidates. Many of the nurses had brothers or fathers serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. They were women with an average age of 29.9 years, and almost all were single – at least at enlistment. Appointment to the CAMC nursing service also required women to have British citizenship, to possess high moral character, physical fitness, and be between the ages of 21 and 38. It also eliminated non-Caucasian women, who were at the time ineligible to train as nurses in Canada.
This limited the number of semi-trained and untrained women who, in the past, had offered a form of nursing service to other armies. Who Were They?Ĭanadian military nurses were required to be trained nurses before enlistment. Nicknamed “bluebirds” because of their blue uniforms and white veils, Canada’s nursing sisters saved lives by caring for wounded and sick soldiers as well as convalescents, prisoners of war, and even civilians on occasion.
More than 2,800 nurses served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC), as fully-enlisted officers in the specially-created all female rank of Nursing Sister, with relative rank and equal pay to men – the first women among the Allied forces to do so.
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