Nurse's tribute to Anzac legacy

HISTORY: Tauranga nurse Eliza Benfell is travelling to Greece to honour the Anzac nurses who treated soldiers wounded at Gallipoli.PHOTO/ANDREW WARNER

One hundred years ago, nurses risked all on the front line to help the wounded and dying soldiers who fought at Gallipoli.

This month, Tauranga nurse Eliza Benfell seeks to honour their memory by retracing their journey through the Greek islands that became the primary evacuation point for Gallipoli casualties.

Mrs Benfell will join a group of about 40 New Zealanders and 70 Australians making the journey on board the Serenissima.They leave on August 31.

The New Zealanders will wear replica nurses' uniforms worn by cast members of the television drama Anzac Girls, which were donated to the party by producers Screentime.

Each month at Bethlehem Views' secure dementia wing, where Mrs Benfell is the team leader, staff have a theme for residents, and this month they are honouring 100 years of Anzac nursing.

On Wednesday this week, Mrs Benfell was in full costume - minus the petticoats - while the other staff wore nursing aprons.

"I have pride in knowing they were in this uniform. I was in awe of the nurses who worked in those terrible conditions. They weren't wanted there until they got going and their worth was realised. All these trials and tribulations they had to go through, they ran out of bandages and had to cut up their petticoats. It was very tough times and we just have no idea."

Mrs Benfell learned about the trip a few months ago in a nurses' association magazine and jumped at the chance.

"I was in the Army myself as a medic. We will be visiting a range of places where the Anzac nurses served, particularly the Greek island Lemnos where one of the Anzac hospitals was based."

There, the party will re-enact the landing of the Australian Nursing Sisters on August 8, 1915.

Mrs Benfell said she wanted to be a part of the trip not just for her family and its history, but for the whole nursing philosophy.

"This is the history, this is where they came from and look at where we are today. Do we really have anything to moan about?

"I love nursing today and I think the history of nursing is just fascinating.

"It makes me want to honour them, it really does."

Another major part of the trip will be to remember the Marquette, a transport ship sunk in the Aegean Sea in 1915, with 10 New Zealand nurses losing their lives.

The party will also visit a range of other historic sites and will have lectures on board the Serenissima with Sydney Nursing School honorary research associate Clare Ashton, who organised the trip, and Christine Hallet, Professor of Nursing History at the University of Manchester.