Next month I will be giving a presentation on the No 1 Australian Stationary Hospital to a large Probus club in Brisbane. With so much information at my fingertips regarding this subject, it is difficult to choose what to speak about. Reading through my notes I found a little interesting story about the hospital’s first patient in Ismailia….not a wounded soldier would you believe but the birth of a child. The half of the hospital that was in Ismalia in 1915 took in a pregnant lady who had been on a passenger ship. The ship was bound for the Netherlands from Dutch East Indies but had been delayed at the mouth of the Suez Canal for 6 weeks as military vessels had priority, thus significantly delaying the passenger vessel to its destination. By the time the passenger ship was halfway up the canal, the lady’s water broke and she was quickly disembarked and admitted to the No 1 Australian Stationary Hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She named him Ismail after the town in which he was born.