General nursing / by Eva C.E. Lückes.

  • Lückes, Eva C. E. (Charlotte Ellis), 1854-1919.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General nursing / by Eva C.E. Lückes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    some special treatment, if they only sleep for a short space of time and lie awake at intervals, it is best for the nurse to seize one of these intervals in the early morning to wash the patient and make him generally comfortable. After this, especially if she completes the process by giving him a warm drink, the chances are that the patient, knowing that no further disturbance awaits him, may go to sleep again for three or four hours. In other cases, washing the patient early would rouse him up too effectually, and, therefore, it must not be done until the regulation time. Night nurses in hospitals, who will have filled all their hot-water bottles at an early hour (see p. 61), should quietly go on with their preparations for the patients' breakfasts and for the washing of helpless patients, so that all is in readiness before it is necessary to turn up the lights and to begin the little stir and bustle which is almost inseparable from the routine morning work in a busy ward. Some patients feel their weakness more in the early morn- ing than at any other hour of the day. These patients are often glad of a cup of hot tea and some food before making the slightest exertion. Others prefer to be washed, or to get up and wash themselves, before taking their breakfast. It is pleasant to see how a really methodical nurse will know how to manage so well that every patient will feel that the arrangements have been specially adapted to his individual wants, and yet the general ward work will be steadily advanc- ing and done up to time. The foresight and management displayed by a competent nurse, who always leaves some margin for the unexpected claims which are certain to arise amongst a number of sick people, will secure that everything is done satisfactorily within the regulation hours. A routine, mechanical type of nurse will not, as a rule, be more successful in this respect, although, in her efforts to attain this object, much of her patient's comfort will have been sacrificed.