[Sidenote: Two kinds of Hospital Service for Females.]
1. If their introduction is eventually commanded by the Queen’s
Government, it will be advisable to consider that their service admits
of two distinct kinds.
[Sidenote: The one: its Advantages;]
2. “Their chief duties” may be “taking charge of the linen and
superintending the issue of extras.”
They will thus contribute materially to the comfort and well-being
of the sick; the real difficulties which undoubtedly beset the
introduction of women into ward service will be avoided; and, an
important consideration, not lightly to be discarded, their exclusion
from the ward service will materially diminish the opposition of
adverse masters, some of whom are also unscrupulous masters.
[Sidenote: The other: its Advantages.]
3. On the other hand, I suppose, the experience of every woman,
admitted to ward service in hospitals where women were not before,
is that many lives are actually saved by such admission, which would
otherwise, humanly speaking, be lost. In time of war some ciphers may
be safely added to the many. Any other great emergency, I suppose, but
do not speak from experience, would give the same result.
That the experience of many surgeons is identical, their conduct has
proved; no other testimony, under present circumstances, can rationally
be expected from them.
[Sidenote: Both to be Weighed.]
4. It is often right to begin with the smaller and less-opposed good,
and to introduce gradually, and, as it pleases God, the remainder. It
may be our duty to do this, as to this matter.
[Sidenote: Practical Superiority of the Second.]
5. Practically, it is of little avail to superintend, ever so
carefully, the issue of extras to the sick, unless there is permission
and opportunity to pour the nourishment, perhaps in continual drops,
down the throat of reluctant agony, or delirium, or stupor. And it is
of little avail to have this permission, unless there be also that of
raising the decent covering under which cholera, erysipelas, or the
oppression of long recumbency, or the discharging wound, or the recent
operation lie, and seeing to matters within. It is a further question,
whether the painful cleansing of painful wounds, and the important
minor dressings, as poulticing, which things, generally speaking, never
have been done, and never will be done by surgeons, are best left to
nurses, orderlies, or the patients themselves.
[Sidenote: Its real and great Difficulties.]
6. At the same time, nothing is more pernicious than to under-rate the
objections of opponents. There is no doubt that the admission of women
to ward service is beset with difficulties. These Naval and Military
Hospitals are, and must ever be, peculiar Hospitals, essentially
different in important details from the Civil Hospitals.
Sisters of Mercy, as regards the ward service, are decorous and kind,
and sometimes inefficient and prudish. Nurses are careful, efficient,
often decorous, and always kind, sometimes drunken, sometimes unchaste.
Misconduct of women is far more pernicious in a Military or Naval
Hospital than in any other, as regards the result of things--the crime
is, of course, equally crime everywhere.
[Sidenote: Condense numbers as much as possible.]
7. It appears to me desirable to simplify and condense, as much as
possible, female service in these Hospitals. Let there be as few women,
and these few as efficient and as respectable as can be. Let all that
can really be done by men be so done.
[Sidenote: Only Head Nurses.]
8. Head-nurses are alone, I think, desirable to be employed; I
mean persons of the character, responsibility, and efficiency, of
head-nurses in other Hospitals.
[Sidenote: Classify the Patients.]
9. The patients should be distinctly classed, though, of course, this
is not the Female Superintendent’s business.
There are many pros and cons to the formation of convalescent wards.
It is a question whether convalescent or chronic patients require
female nurses at all.
Of such chronic cases, probably 100 would be efficiently served by one
nurse, having orderlies under her. Of acute cases, probably, one nurse
should take charge of not more than fifty, possibly not more than forty.
[Sidenote: Qualification of Nurses.]
10. The nurses should be strong, active women, of not less than
thirty, nor, I think, more than sixty years of age, of unblemished
character, and should be irreversibly dismissed for the first offence
of unchastity, drunkenness, or dishonesty, or proved impropriety of any
kind.
[Sidenote: Wages.]
11. Their wages, I think, the same as those of head-nurses in Civil
Hospitals--certainly, not more.
[Sidenote: Pensions.]