Subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and war.

  • Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Subsidiary notes as to the introduction of female nursing into military hospitals in peace and war. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material is part of the Elmer Belt Florence Nightingale collection. The original may be consulted at University of California Libraries.

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    infceudeut-Greneral of Nurses for each General Hospital, in a proportion not exceeding one nurse for every twenty-five cases. There is nothing so fatal to discipline as to require by regula- tions what it is known and admitted cannot be performed. Such rules are made to be broken. Therefore, is it not better, instead of fixing a number to fix a limit, and say not exceed- ing one to every 25 or 30 patients, leaving it to the Super- intendent-General to economize Nurses, and not appoint the full number permitted, unless when really necessary ? In one case she might consider one nurse for fifty or even sixty sufli- cient; in another, one for every twenty-five might be few enough. Why tie up her hands against economy as well as against extravagance ? At the same time it is necessary to state— (1.) That, by all accounts, at home and abroad, in the English and in foreign armies, the proportion of severe eases is very considerably less, in time of peace, in a Military Hospital than in a Civil one, especially in the surgical wards. (2.) That the Nurse's time, being relieved of the waste incurred by fetching and waiting for things, the cleaning of the ward being done by Orderlies, and, an important item, the Ward-Master being responsible for the serving the patients' food, twenty-five sick are not enough, on an average, to occupy, properly, her time. (3.) That idleness, always pernicious, is never more so than to Hospital-Nurses. (4l.) That petting the patients, by way of filling up time, would be, of the two, more pernicious than idleness. (5.) That it is most important, apart from these reasons, to train and accustom these Nurses to serve eflSciently large numbers of patients, so as to make them useful in war-service, where every woman who can be spared is better away; and where a small efficient staff would, please God, do excellent service, (6.) That it is not in human nature, taking its average, sup- posing the Kegulations lay down that the proportion is not to exceed 25, for many Nurses not to murmur at having more; whereas they ought from the first to understand, that the ser- vice is a very laborious one, and that none but women able and