CN-ASTV is the acronym for Civilian Nurses, Australian Surgical Teams, Vietnam 1964-1972 Click here for our Bulletin Board Click here to E-mail us. The group has now changed its name to ACM/ST-V meaning Australian Civilian Medical/Surgical Teams Vietnam 1964-1972. But CNASTV remains as a sub-branch. Membership of ACM/ST is open to all civilian health professionals who served in Vietnam during the war. Associate membership is available for family and friends

Objectives:

• To promote and support the development of government structures which recognize the veteran status of the group membership.
• To act as a lobby group
• To co-operate with similar organizations throughout the world
• To provide social support for the membership of the group

• Work in close collaboration with the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia (VVAA)
• Hold meetings
• Publish and distribute a newsletter
• Any other appropriate activities

Australian Surgical Team in action in 1967 Dr Tom Calou examines a child with nurse Kay Parnell and Interpreter Kim. Student nurses in background. ©Copyright Jan Mills

A nurse with a gun? Pat Deal, Long Xuyen 1968, learns to use a M16 to protect herself. Click here for full story

Current CN-ASTV Membership Fees: Click graphic to visit a related site
Membership $25.00 per year
Associate Membership $20.00 per year

Donations are gratefully accepted

Postal Address:
CN-ASTV Secretariat
c/o PO Box 2333 MDC
Kew, Vic. 3101 Australia

Our thanks to the Department of Veterans' Affairs for its grant to enable the writing of a biography of Wilma Oram Young under the project banner "Their Service Our Heritage" A prisoner under the Japanese she devoted the rest of her life to helping War Veterans. Click here to ORDER this book "A WOMAN'S WAR" Now Available!

Quotes:
"We'd been told we would be doing surgery and teaching local doctors and nurses. When we got there we found ourselves totally embroiled in war trauma. There was no time for teaching at all. It was frontline surgery under frontline conditions..."

"We did a lot of major surgery: amputations, stitching up and dealing with the aftermath of a US bullet that explodes on impact. It's still used today - it leaves a very small entrance hole, but when you get inside the patient everything has been absolutely mashed. I remember one patient with a live mortar head in the abdomen that had to be removed without any of us being blown up. Highly stressful, highly dangerous..."

"(After we got home) We were never debriefed and nobody wanted to know anyway, with the result that doctors, nurses, radiographers, all of us just pushed everything down. Many of us are suffering the psychological effects of that now..."

"I remember in the late 70s asking my doctor if what was wrong with me could have been the result of my time in Vietnam. He said: 'No way. Agent Orange was nowhere near Bien Hoa.' They Subsequently discovered that province was probably the most sprayed in the war..."

The above quotes are from Dot Angell, interviewed by Helen O'Neill and published in The Weekend Australian Magazine, April 21-22,2001.©Reproduced by permission of both the author and the interviewee.