Report on personnel in Spain

              REPORT ON PERSONNEL IN SPAIN. 
By Mrs. Leah Manning.   September 1938.
1. ROSITA [ Davson ].
When I arrived in Barcelona, I found that Rosita had successfully accomplished the moves suggested by the Committee. In place of the flat, we have now a small apartment containing a living room, a bedroom for Rosita, another small bedroom in which two small beds can be made up for visiting nurses and a bathroom.    The office is in the Sanidad buildings and San Martin Head of Ayuda Medica, also has his office in the same buildings. The office is extremely well arranged with good filing, excellent addresses, times and fares of trains, buses, aeroplanes, etc. and it is easy to turn up any relevant information the moment it is asked for.   The moving was accomplished at a great expenditure of energy on the part of Rosita since it was undertaken at a time when no transport at all was available and she had to carry by hand practically everything which had to be transferred from the flat to either the apartment or the office.    Our supplies of food etc., are still stored in the cellarage beneath the old flat.
I discussed fully with Rosita, our position in Spain and particularly, as I reported earlier, the situation with regard to the new Committee of National Aid to Spain, and found her efficient and businesslike as she has always been in any work she has undertaken for us.    I investigated with great thoroughness the various complaints which have reached us from time to time about Rosita, from various people and was able to confirm the impression, which was already very strong in my own mind, that so far as the nurses are concerned all the complaints come from people who have formerly worked, or are now working with what is familiarly known th the Committee as the 35th. Division.    If I am explicit about a couple of complaints (and it must be remembered that I frankly asked all the nurses whether they got on well with Rosita, whether she made then happy or if they had any complaint to make about her which I could help to remedy) it is because they show exactly the old antagonisms which still remains in the minds of people who have never fully understood the new policy of the Committee.
(i) I asked Nurse 'A' whether she was glad we had appointed a definite representative in Spain and whether she felt it would make the work easier.   Her reply was: "No, not while it is Rosita because she gives everything the Committee sends out to the Sanidad." When I asked her what she thought ought to be done, she said: "Well, I think our doctors have a right to ask the Committee to send things to them.    After all, the Committee recruited us for work in Spain and perhaps they do not realise that by sending everything to Rosita, the things are passed on to the Sanidad."    I then asked her whether her hospital had over applied to Rosita for materials so that she could put the request before the Sanidad, and her reply was that of course she did not really know how things were done now, but she had the impression that Rosita gave everything to the Sanidad. I explained with great patience the policy of the Committee and that Rosita as our representative was only carrying out that policy and eventually she agreed that Rosita was not to blame, but that nevertheless it was Rosita and Peter Spencer who had made the change in the first place.  I doubt if we ever shall wipe out that old antagonism, although I think that doctors like Reginald Saxton and Bury probably will help us to do so, by showing that if they send lists to Rosita, they do get the materials back if the Committee can afford to send them; and that whilst a great deal of our money may go in sending expensive apparatus and instruments etc. to the Sanidad, they benefit by it in the long run. (See Bury's last letter.)