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.

    49/130 (page 43)
    director of one of the best systems of district nursing in the country, which has, as Miss Lees remarks, done and is doing infinite good in the rehef of sickness and suffering, but which is deficient in regular professional supervision and inspection—certain examples of nursing as it ought not to be. 'In all cases of scarlatina or other fevers that I visited |^^^^^[?^^°^ with different nurses, I was much struck with the fact that the nurses did not seem to have the faintest conception of the necessity of disinfecting a room while the patient was ill. They seemed to think that that was the duty of the sanitary officers, and could only be carried into effect when the patient was cured, or dead. I visited several convales- cents from scarlatina, with nurses, who then proceeded to other cases without having used the very commonest of precautions against carrying infection, such as washing their hands afterwards^ not sitting down in the room in which patient is, etc. 'I will give an instance which struck me particularly. We had just visited a case of spotted typhus,- in a house where the whole family—with one exception—were re- covering from the same fever, and yet the nurse went straight from this house to orie where a mother was nursing her baby!! I went over one district with a nurse who told me that she lived in the same house as the parish doctor, and found it a great help, as he kept her up to her work, and it was a sort of encouragement when anyone who really knew anything about it knew that you did your work well, This nurse was a thoroughly good hospital surgical nursCj but one who absolutely required strict superintendence. She dressed well various surgical cases, but she forgot to wash her hands afterwards ! In one instance she went from a case of erysipelas to another surgical case of crushed foot, and was proceeding to take the bandages off it when I stopped her by the half jesting exclamation, Oh! you wicked v^ovsx^vl ; remember what you've just been doing, and that you have not washed your hands since !' She laughed and blushed, and asked someone in the room to bring her some water to wash her hands with before she touched the fodt, telling them at the same time the reason why it was necessary. ' In another district the nurse front this home, instead of Deficient attention.