THE NURSE NUISANCE.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 226, 10 January 1885, Page 3

THE NURSE NUISANCE.

There are nurses, and there are nurses. The days of Sairey Gamp, Betsy Prigg, and the mythical Mrs Harris have long gone by, it is to be hoped, when the comfort of the nurse was considered far more than that of the patient, whose medicine was forced down with a merciless hand, and the pillow taken away to make a comfortable seat for the obese, half drunken harridans, who officiated as nurses in the old times. Now, thanks to an enlightened age, we have trained nurses recommended only by medical men, but many of these nurses are utterly callous, forgetting that all the training and skill is nothing unless accompanied by kind words and actions. Those who have suffered sickness, and, in this world of woe, how many are there that have not suffered more or less? — then how fidgety illness makes one. Then comes the true nurse with gentle hand and heart, strongnerve, and soothing, kindly words to cheer and enliven the poor sufferer. Take, for instance, those nurses who attend confinement cases. How quickly does the doctor recognise a good auxiliary and able assistant when he sees a marked improvement in his patient every visit ; but, on the other hand, when no marked improvement is observable, he knows that Nature will either not assert her sway, or that the nurse has not done her duty. A harsh word or an unkind action will do much to throw a patient back, and in nine cases out of ten, if the nurse, has an unkind, uncouth w,iy. the patient will not tell the doctor. Some nurses bore their patients by persisting in relating all their family history on their griefs and woes, utterly regardless of the fact that probably the patient does not care a straw whether the nurse is granddaughter of the King of Utopia, or niece of a consul, which the latter dignity, by the way, can be held by any nobody in small towns.