MEATH WORKHOUSE ATTENDANTS'

ASSOCIATION.

BY MISS O'REILLY,

Assistant Secretary, Meath Workhouse Attendants' Association.

THE number of sick, infirm, and dying people who are to be found in our Workhouses is greater than is generally known. In many cases the infirm are ineligible for the infirmary, and sometimes the sick and the dying are too ill to be removed there.

Frequently the only attendants these Workhouse inmates have are the wardsmen and wards women chosen from amongst themselves, and it is not to be wondered at if they are found untrustworthy, ignorant, and otherwise unsuitable.

Indeed pauper nursing has nothing to excuse it, not even the plea of economy. Pauper attendants waste that for which they do not care, and use for themselves the nourishment and stimulants ordered for the sick. To be attended by such is a humiliation to the decent poor in their illness. It is the cause of unknown and untold cruelty. It prolongs illness, as the pauper nurse is in no haste to forward the recovery of a patient to whose illness he or she is indebted for various and sundry delicacies.

It is only occasionally that the abuses which arise from pauper attendance come before the public, but the amount of suffering it entails is seldom heard of or recorded. Quite recently the Hon. Secretary of a Workhouse Visiting Committee wrote to us, saying:"The present wards women and wardsmen are often very unsatisfactory, and the Ladies' Visiting Committee of Union, of which I am Hon. Sec., would be very glad if they knew of any satisfactory way out of the difficulty.'

In one of the most important Unions in the North of Ireland the staff provided for the nursing of sixty beds consisted of one (so-called) nurse (who had not regular hospital experience and teaching), five female pauper helps, and two male paupers, both infirm. The assistants in the nursing were five pauper women, one of whom was about sixty-five years of age, and the other four were women of questionable character. Besides these five women, a wardsman was kept on the male side of the house; his age was about seventyfour, and his hearing was defective. Previous to his coming into the Workhouse he was an ordinary daylabourer. He was assisted from time to time by one or two old and infirm men who sat up at night with bad cases. One such was looking after a case of cancer on the day of the Inspector's visit. The Inspector also saw a third old man who occasionally acted as night nurse, and his qualifications would appear to have been that he was feeble and had a paralysed arm. Many of these pauper attendants are subjects requiring nursing themselves.

Trained attendants in Unions are needed, not only as nurses to the sick, but for purposes of supervision.

As a result of a recent midnight visit paid by two Guardians to the Westminster Union Workhouse, a thorough inquiry is to be instituted into the conduct of nurses and others. The unexpected visitors found the gates separating the male from the female quarters unlocked, and one of the members declared he had discovered that it was a nightly occurrence for nurses and female inmates to go over to the males' quarters. There were also allegations of laxity of discipline and gross immorality.

Here is another illustration of nursing in a Poor Law Union. It is taken from an Irish Workhouse, but I have learned on good authority that similar cases occur at the present time in England. There were five cases of typhus in the Union referred to.

Three of

these patients were delirious. The nurse was untrained. She was assisted by paupers during the day; she was replaced by paupers during the night. The nurse caught the fever, and was buried within seven days. The dying nurse, who fell ill at her post, and the fever patients who had been under her charge, were "nursed" during these days only by paupers. A trained nurse was obtained on the day of the funeral. There were now in the Union five cases of typhus fever, two cases of scarlatina, and one case of diphtheria. The new nurse, after her day's work of anxiety and danger, felt obliged to go round to her patients' beds every two or three hours during the night. She frequently found the pauper attendants asleep, but did not think they should be blamed, as the female pauper was supposed to cook and wash for all the patients and do the scrubbing work during the day; in fact, she was the only wardsmaid, and was supposed to do night duty as well. Under such a strain the nurse sickened of typhus, and was found lying like a log on a bed of straw.

To ameliorate the condition of such Workhouse inmates the Countess of Meath has founded an Association to provide attendants for them. At her own expense she has placed more than eighty young women as probationers in various Hospitals and Homes throughout the country, in order to qualify them for the position of attendants in Workhouses. Amongst the institutions in which they are trained are-The Crumpsall Infirmary, Manchester; Birmingham Children's Hospital; Kent and Canterbury Hospital; the General Hospital, Nottingham; the Royal Bucks Hospital, Aylesbury; the General Infirmary, Worcester; the Cheltenham Hospital; Moseley Convalescent Hospital, Birmingham; Poplar Hospital; Mildmay Memorial Hospital; St Lucy's Home, Gloucester; St Peter's Home, Kilburn; Home for Invalids, Highbury; St Peter's Home, Woking; Meath Home of Comfort, Godalming.

The term of training usually lasts for one year. In some cases the year is sufficient, but in others it is considered advisable to give the probationer two years' training, before she goes as attendant or assistant nurse in a Workhouse.

Nearly fifty of these probationers have now obtained Poor Law appointments, and are in receipt of good salaries from the Guardians, varying from £20 to 30 per annum. We do not find that these salaries correspond with the qualifications of the attendants appointed, but depend on the views taken by the Guardians, and as the Guardians are not always able to distinguish between certificates and testimonials, and in some cases between a trained nurse and one untrained, it is not surprising that we occasionally find that the shorter trained attendants are offered the higher salaries. This is a matter which we hope will right itself in time, as the education of the Guardians progresses.

Amongst the Workhouses to which these attendants have been appointed are-Islington, Whitechapel, St Pancras, Poplar, Bow, Fulham, Shoreditch, Isleworth, Minster, Holborn, Blandford, Eastry, Saffron Walden, Ouleston, Oxford, Ely, Chippenham, Hastings, Hungerford, North Walsham, Eastbourne, Pembury, Leicester, Bristol, and Liverpool.

Lately, however, these attendants have been placed in positions of such responsibility, that the Committee are considering the advisability of extending the training in all cases to two years.

From the many letters we have received from our assistant nurses I shall read two, which will give some idea of the work they are doing :

-.

19th January 1899.

DEAR MISS LEE,-It is with much pleasure that I now write to tell you a little about my work, as you so kindly wish to hear.

On the whole, I think I am getting on very well, and like my work very much. The first six weeks I was on night duty with the females, but now am on day duty with the males. We have at pre

sent thirty-six females and thirty-three males. Nearly all of them are very patient and grateful for anything done for them. Most of them are very old people, and some have to be washed and fed like little children.

At present I have had nothing to do but what had been either practically taught or explained at "St Peter's."

A. Y.

19th January 1899.

DEAR MISS LEE,-It gave me great pleasure to receive your kind letter of the 18th. I am very sorry not to have written to you before, but we were so very busy I have had little time for myself.

For the first seven weeks I was on night duty in the Female Infirmary, and owing to so many changes of nurses I have been on day duty in the Male Infirmary. Since the 29th September my duties are to go down to the Workhouse morning and night, to give medicines to any of the men that require it; then at 8 A.M. I attend to all the out-patients, such as boys from the School and men from the House, who need poultices or wounds dressed. It is nearly 9 A.M. before I can begin my work in the Infirmary. First I have to wash all the helpless patients, make their beds, &c.; take all temperatures, change all poultices, fomentations, and dressings. It is then time to change all crib cases before dinner. I then see all the dinners served and weighed for each patient, and then feed those that are unable to feed themselves; and after dinner I have to go all round again to each ward, nearly the same as in the morning; and after tea, to wash the patients and prepare everything for when the night nurse comes on duty at 8 P.M.

The work is very heavy just now. I did not mention that I have to attend on the casuals in the Tramp Ward. The Doctor writes on the slate when any of them need medicine, poultices, or dressings done for them. I see more here in the way of nursing than I did at St Peter's. I have seen the Doctor set three broken legs within the last few weeks; two of the men are getting on nicely, and the other poor old man only lived a week after; and what a lot of men we have brought in insensible through drink, at all hours of the night.

We have now eighty-six patients, and only myself and the charge nurse to do everything for them. One thing, I have no ward work to do the wardsmen do that. I am pleased to tell you that I am enjoying very good health, which I think helps me to do all I can for the sick. I never mind how much work I have to do, so long as I know it is to make them happy and comfortable, and to help them to bear their pain which God has seen fit to send them, and I know I shall have my reward by-and-by.

I can say that I am very happy and comfortable here; still I am looking forward to the time when I shall spend a few days at St Peter's Home with the Sisters. I often have nice letters from them, both interesting and encouraging, and seem a great help and comfort E. C.

to me.