Notes on nursing for the labouring classes / by Florence Nightingale.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on nursing for the labouring classes / by Florence Nightingale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    115/120 (page 113)
    MKTIIOD OF TRAINING NURSES. washing, and a certain quantity of outer clothing, are provided free, besides a salary of £10 for the year. After being received on a month's trial and trained tor a month, if the probationer shows sufficient aptitude and character, and is herself desirous to complete her training, she is required to come under an obligation binding her to take service as a nurse for the sick poor,* for at least four years. This is the only re- compense the Committee exact for the costs and advantages of training. A list of Duties is put into the hands of every probationer on entering the service, as a general instruction for her guidance. Once admitted to St. Thomas's Hospital, the probationer is placed under a head nurse (ward sister) having charge of a -ward, and performs the duties of an assistant nurse. The ward training of the probationers is thus earned out under the ward sisters and matron. [The probationers are, whether on or off duty, entirely under the moral control of the matron.] Instruction is also given by the Eesident Medical Officer on duties of a medical and surgical character. A record is kept of the conduct and qualifications of each pro- bationer ; and the character the nurse receives at the end of the year is made to correspond as nearly as may be with the results of the training. The regidations and previous information required may be obtained by writing to the Secretary of the Nightingale Fund, H. Bonham-Carter, Esq., 91, Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, London, W. Before admission, personal application should be made to Mrs. Wardroper, St. Thomas's Hospital, London, S.E. It has occurred to me to suggest whether, among the large Union Schools, a number of girls might not be found willing and suitable to be trained as nurses. These girls are usually put out to service between the ages of 14 and 16. This is quite too young to put them at once into any kind of infirmary or hospital to take their chance altogether with the other probationers, especially in the men's wards. But it is not at all too young, where arrangements and pro- vision can be made under a proper female head, for them to learn sick cookery, cleaning, needlework, orderly habits, all that, is learnt in a servants' training school, and to take their turn in doing what they can be taught to do in children's sick wards, and * The obligation is at present limited to service in Hospitals or Infirmaries.