GRAVE CHARGES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1849, 5 February 1889, Page 3

GRAVE CHARGES.

A correspondent signing himself Wm. Gay recently sent the following letter to the Otaeo Daily Times : Sir, —I was once an inmate of the Dunedin Hospital for six weeks, and noticed there a few things to which I think it is for the public good that public attention should be called, though it is nearly two years since I left the hospital. I did not at that time choose to say anything from various causes, which, judged by a high standard, were perhaps insufficient, As these causes are now inopera, x five, and aa I have learned on undeniable , UUAhority that matters stand as they stood, itahas been urged upon me by persons in whose judgment I have confidence, and I myself feel, that it is my duty to speak out. The great defect is in the nursing, which •is mostly done by men. A* a rule men are naturally incapable of nursing so well as women. They can, of course, fetch a patient’s food, give him his medicine, and make his bed; but they are wanting in that sympathy, that quiet and gentle authority, and that almost intuitive perception of a patient’s wants which women manifest in the presence of disease. I would not be thought as bringing this charge against every man, but I certainly do bring it against the majority of those who go in for hospital nursing. As a class they are inferior to the class of women who go as nurses, and that not only in ' intellectual and moral excellence,*sbut, what is more to the point, in skill and knowledge of their art. Male nurses —in the Dunedin Hospital, at any rate—if trained at all, are only half trained. The following incidents may be extreme cases, but they happened with three days of each other, and I saw them with my irivn eyes. It is certain that with female jiursea they would not have happened : On Monday, March 14,1887, a patient suffering from phthisis, complicated with bleeding at the lungs, had a sudden attack of violent bleeding. It was a case of extreme danger, for the patient had been weakened by previous bleedings. The nurse, or warder as he is called, seemed in no basts to attend to the case. After a little delay he walked up with a basin, roughly hauled the patient into a sitting posture, and told him not to soil the counterpane, but spit the blood well into the basin. He then said —the words are burnt into me, so cruel were they—- “ How’s the time if yon have any property to dispose of.” As it happened, the patient recovered to write this letter. On Saturday, the 12th of the same month, a patient in the last stage of Bright s disease lay moaning in the far corner of the ward. His name I forget, but 1 remember he was a fishmonger, and was supposed to have money hidden somewhere. Be was lying on his back unable to move. “My God, lift me up, lift me up,” he cried, evidently in great pain. “ Be quiet, will you,” shouted the nurse from half way up the ward. “ 0 for God's sake, lift me up,” he repeated. “ Give me ten bob of that money you’ve got, and i’ll lift you,” cried the warder in a jocular voice, winking generally round the ward. Hereupon the sick man gave .vent to a string of oaths, and then was client for a little, only to break out in /tones of greater agony, “Lift me up, 0 my God, lift me up." “ I’ll lift you if you'll give me a pound, and I’ll raise my charge every time cried the warder. Again there followed a series of curses, dying away as the man lost breath, and all was quiet. Half an hour later, in the broad day, and in the sight of all of us, his corpse was pitched—l use the word advisedly—with scant ceremony into an open coffin and carried out of the ward. It was no comforting spectacle to those of us who did not know the hour when we ourselves might be carried out. From 6 at night until 6 in the morning there is practically no nursing at all. One man, who did duty as hall porter, went round the wards on the ground flat two or three times during the night, and generally woke everybody up by the extraordinary noise he made with his hobnailed boots—as I am sure they must have been. As a matter of fact, all through the night, when the physical sufferings and imaginary fears. of the sick are far greater than in the daytime, and when skilful nursing and careful watching are often most required, of supervision worth the name there was absolutely none at all; and a patient might die in the night and no one be wiser till morning. In ray own case, I often took a fit of bleeding in Ihe night, and being unable to raise myself I had to let the blood trickle down on my breast. Sometimes 1 managed to rattle with a spoon on a basin by ray bedside so as to waken some of the other patients, one of whom, staring at me fearfully and silently as if in the presence of death, would come and timidly bold the basin under my chin. I did not, of course, allow this to continue. By the influence of ontside friends a convalescent patient from one of the surgical Awards was set to watch me during the night. 1 frightened him away tbe first night, and another took his place. If in the morning tbe counterpane was at all bloody I had to stand abuse from the nurse. 1 dare say your readers will scarcely believe that so many sick people are as good as left alone every alternative twelve hours. 1 can only assure them: that it is disgracefully and shamefully true. There was also a want of necessary utensils and appliances. 1 had a bed-sore .which gave great pain. I applied for a circular air cushion, and after many hour’s aearce one was found, but on lying on it fora few minutes it collapsed, and the sore, on coming into collision with tbe mattress, was prematurely burst. A second cushion was not provided. A patient in the next bed to me complained that tbe straws of the mattress were pricking him in the back, X myself saw them sticking through. The warder was informed, but nothing was done. Tbe patients were afraid to incur the displeasure of tbe warder—upon whose cate of them so much might depend—by reporting any irregularities to the house surgeon or honorary staff. The cooking was bad. Every day I was supposed, to have a chop. With the exception of the first every one was so burnt ns tobeuneatable even by a healthy person, Erery morning during convalescence 1 had two eggs. They were given me without leither eggcop or spoon, and 1 had to eat the best way i could with a knife. Bread and butter were handed round in “ junks,” and tea was served out in huge thick mugs, which had often no handles. Ho doubt there waa plenty of food, bgt \\»

was cooked and served in such a way and in such vessels that patients whose appetites required to be coaxed could not touch it. 1 haye seen better living in a ship’s forecastle. These then are the charges which 1 feel obliged to bring against the hospital, in the hope that the people of Dunedin may be stirred to inquire into the matter for themselves, and to initiate a reform 1. That there is an inefficient system of male nursing in the daytime. 1. Thot there is a complete absence of efficient nursing during the night. 3. That there is a great want of those comforts and amenities of the sick room which are so necessary for the successful treatment of disease, and which so often decide the turn of the balance.

1 would add that it is impossible to criticise unfavorably any institution without attaching more or less blame on the individuals concerned in the administration, and I cannot hope to have said my «»y about the hospital without to some extent reflecting on those connected with it ; but 1 would earnestly assure them that I have not been moved by any personal considerations, bnt solely by a desire for the public good. 1 must also say that I was as well treated by nearly [everyone as was possible under the inefficient system on which the hospital is condncted. lam not competent to go into the details of a reform. That may safely be left to the honorary medical staff. Indeed, the honorary staff have too little say in the management of the hospital, and to them, as to the general public, this letter will doubtless be a revelation. So far as I was able to judge, they seemed to do their duty thoroughly, and would certainly have had more successful cases bad all their instructions been faithfully carried out.

The moral of this letter is simply this —that if the people of Dunedin will spend a little more money on their hospital, they will save more lives, »nd make more pleasant the dying of those who must die.