Report of the Sub-Committee of Reference and Enquiry, National Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor.

  • National Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor. Sub-Committee of Reference and Enquiry.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Sub-Committee of Reference and Enquiry, National Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/130 (page 39)
    ' In one case only I saw the nurse at work. I think it was a case of rheumatic gout. The patient had lost the use of her legs, and the nurse, she told us, had been rubbing them for an hour daily by the doctors orders. When we came into the room the nurse was just washing her patient, and the manner of both patient and nurse gave one the impression that the nurse was m constant and careful atten-dance. All the cases where nurses actually did anything for their patients were people who could well have afforded (it seemed to me) to have paid some small sum weekly for her services. Among the very poor, how- ever, the services of the nurse seemed to be restricted to giving nourishment. We visited one poor man with a fearful abscess in his hand, which did not look to me as if it had ever been properly cleaned or poulticed. I washed and examined it myself, and found on enquiry that it had never been atterided to by the nurse, only by the wife. We per- suaded the man to go into the infirniary. The Lady Superintendent acts as a sort of inspector. _ She visits all her tiurses' cases once a week, and appoints them their daily cases, which are to be visited by them and cared for according to the directions given them by the Lady Superintendent. ' These nurses dd not attend to their cases on Sunday ; attd one old woman complained bitterly that something hsLving prevented the nurse coming to her on Saturday she had not been washed nor had her bed made from the Friday until Monday. (This Woman was really poor, but had seen better days. She was scrupulously clean). All the rooms I visited with the Lady Superintendent were clean and well kept, but the nurses are not expected to attetid to the rooms or clean them in any wd,y. ' Only one bed of one patient was really dirty. He was the husband of a p'Oor old woman who got their joint living by selling matches, he being now disabled by rheumatism. The room was scrupulously clean, but it looked as if the sheets had not been tvashed or the bed made for weeks. The latter, however, might not have been the case, only the soiled patchwork quilt arid every possible article of wearing apparel having been heaped on the bed to warm the poor inmate gave an untidy and disorderly appearance. I regretted that blankets were not lent to this case, blankets and bedding of all kinds being largely lent among the poor by the nurses.