Australians who worked as civilian nurses in wartime Vietnam were in Canberra in August for a commemoration to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

In 1967, 26-year-old nurse Dorothy “Dot” Angell joined other staff from The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne in signing up to work in south Vietnam.

Under contract to the Australian Government, the team was sent to work at a civilian hospital.

“I think we thought we were going to another Alfred hospital, with all the facilities, all the equipment, et cetera,” Dot told the ABC’s 7.30 program.

“And what we found were the hospital conditions in a rural area, so we had wards that had dirt floors … We were short 
of everything.”

Dot’s patients included children who had lost limbs to land mines, or had been burnt with napalm dropped 
by US aircraft.

After four frantic months, Dot’s team flew home to Australia. But the transition home was difficult.

“She was startled by loud noises and flew into inexplicable rages. It took her four years to realise she was suffering from post-traumatic stress,” the ABC reported.

Dot and other civilian medical staff suffered similar health problems to the returned service personnel, but were denied the same level of subsidised health care because they were not deployed as part of the military.

It took decades of lobbying for the civilian nurses to finally be given access to the Veterans Gold Card in 2020.