Hospital room

“ There are three hospital rooms in the upper story of the front part of the centre building, they have private water closets, bath tubs, with warm and cold water, and shower, they can be reached from the cells of the north and south wings by the gallery through the guard room and iron staircases, and also from the stairs in the front towers; they are well lighted and ventilated. ”

“ For instance, if one of the fever-patients was taking veratrum, I must see it dropped and given, and note the pulse. If one was just struggling through dysentery, I must attend to his nourishment, and generally fed him myself. Down-stairs was one large room, and three of good size, but smaller. The large one was also a ward. My business-room opposite was also the linen-room of the hospital. Shelves ran from floor to ceiling, a counter in front of them. In one corner stood my desk, and beside it a large country rocking-chair; in another a rough lounge for the convenience of visiting patients. ”

“ It is most affecting to enter the great sick-room, and see the gentle Sisters in their modest attire ministering to the patients, bending over them with their sweet and cheerful countenances, as if they felt that relief from pain and restoration to life and its enjoyments depended on their smiles. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the hospital is almost always full. ”

“ I speak of a hospital not as it is now, but as it was some fifty years ago. The Receiving Room is a bare hall, painted stone colour. It contains as furniture rows of deal benches and as wall decoration a printed notice, framed and glazed, detailing vivid measures for restoring the apparently drowned. Below this helpful document is fixed an iron-bound money-box. There is, moreover, a long desk in the hall where entries are made and certificates and other papers issued. As a room for the reception of the sick and suffering it is a cold, harsh place, with about it an air of cynical indifference. ”

“ One of these trips was to the Armory Hospital, the neatness, comfort, and convenience of which makes it an honor to its presiding genius, and arouses all the covetous propensities of such nurses as came from other hospitals to visit it.
The long, clean, warm, and airy wards, built barrack-fashion, with the nurse's room at the end, were fully appreciated by Nurse Periwinkle, whose ward and private bower were cold, dirty, inconvenient, up stairs and down stairs, and in every-body's chamber. ”

“ A hospital that provides an attractive dining room for its help (which could also be used as a reception room for their friends) , that sees that they have good bath rooms, lavatories, toilet rooms and sleeping rooms, may expect to attract a superior class of servants, who will have some inducement to remain where provision has been made for their comfort. They will have more respect for themselves and for the institution and better service can be expected. ”

“ Every class of patient was accorded separate accommodation: the four halls of the hospital were set apart for those with fever and similar complaints; one part of the building was reserved for eye-patients, one for the wounded, one for those suffering from diarrhoea, one for women; a room for convalescents was divided into two parts, one for men and one for women. Water was laid on to all these departments. One room was set apart for cooking food, preparing medicine and cooking syrups, another for the compounding of confections, balsams, eye-salves, etc. ”

“ A large sky-lighted room had been set apart as an infirmary, and a little suite of rooms in the great tower adjoining as the physician’s quarters. But it was rare indeed that any one was ill at Madame’s, and when a pupil was taken sick, her parents usually took her home at once. So the doctor, having nothing to do but to hear the recitations in physiology, preferred not to reside in the school building, and the pretty suite of rooms, consisting of a parlor and three bedrooms, was assigned to us, and the hospital proper was used as a trunk room. ”

“ One bright morning I sat in the matron's room of the "Buckner Hospital," then located at Newnan, Georgia. Shall I describe to you this room—or my suite of rooms? Indeed, I fear you will be disappointed, dear young readers, for perhaps the word "hospital" conveys to your mind the idea of a handsome and lofty building containing every convenience for nursing the sick, and for the comfort of attendants. Alas! during the war hospital arrangements were of the roughest. Frequent changes of location were imperative, transportation was difficult. ”

“ Should there be no hospital at the disposal of the local authority, and should the house of the patient consist of one or two apartments, the other members of the household should be at once removed. The room in which the sick person is lying should as far as possible be cleared of furniture; and the other apartment, if any, should be devoted to the preparation of articles of food and to the residence of the attendants, limited in number to a day and a night nurse. ”

“ They pass through a kind of turnstile and take their seats in the order of their arrival on rows of benches in a large waiting-room, provided with a stove, a lavatory, and a drinking-fountain, with an attendant nurse and a woman to sell cheap, wholesome buns baked in the Hospital; for they may have to wait all the morning before their turn arrives to go in to the doctor, who sits from nine to twelve seeing and prescribing for child after child; and, if the matter is very serious, sending the poor thing on into the Hospital to occupy one of the cosy cots. ”

“ In all well-conducted hospitals it is now arranged that the nurses on night duty have a hot meal served in the general dining-room during the night, and this is only possible where a nurse and a probationer are allowed for each ward. The nurses’ quarters should be separate from the hospital proper, and connected by a conservatory or covered way. Each nurse should have a separate bedroom, measuring not less than 12 ft. ”

“ It had comfortable spring beds and mattresses, and soft woollen blankets. There were kitchens, a dispensary, an emergency operating room and even bathrooms. A staff of medical officers, nurses and trained orderlies did all which human power can do to make the men comfortable during a trying journey. Every man had had his supper, and his wounds had been dressed en route as scientifically and carefully as if he had been in a "Base Hospital." ”

“ Yet, although we "nose" the murderers, in the musty, unaired, unsunned room, the scarlet fever which is behind the door, or the fever and hospital gangrene which are stalking among the crowded beds of a hospital ward, we say, "It's all right."
With a proper supply of windows, and a proper supply of fuel in open fire-places, fresh air is comparatively easy to secure when your patient or patients are in bed. Never be afraid of open windows then. People don't catch cold in bed. ”

“ As we passed through the upper corridors I had my first introduction to the hospital smell, which is a smell compounded of iodoform, ether, gruel, and something boiling. All hospitals have it, I understand. In time you get used to it, but you never really care for it.
The young man led me into a small room tastefully decorated with four walls, a floor, a ceiling, a window sill and a window, a door and a doorsill, and a bed and a chair. ”

“ Each building, except those designed for stores and general purposes, is made to contain in itself all that is absolutely essential for an independent hospital ward-room; so that, by the lengthening of the corridors, and the addition of any number of these buildings, the hospital may be extended to any degree. ”

“ We were about leaving the hospital, when my friend exclaimed: 'You must see this ward.' So saying, she led me to a small building by itself in the garden, where the patients take exercise when convalescent. Certainly it was a pleasant spot. The sun shining in, made it seem the brightest of the wards. It is divided into two rooms, one for male, the other for female patients. The cases are chiefly bronchitis and similar acute diseases. It is presided over by a sweet-looking Sister. She has her little establishment all to herself including a separate room for any desperate case. ”

“ On the second floor is a quantitative and qualitative laboratory; a museum, a recording room, a library and lecture rooms, and on the third floor are surgical wards, subdivided for major and minor operative cases, together with medical wards, so planned as to have ordinary and chronic medical cases in separate divisions. The hospital is to be freely used for detailed observation as well as for treatment. ”

“ On my admission into hospital I was at first sent to the convalescent ward, a huge room devoted to light and unpronounced cases. It accommodates 40 patients, and the entire furniture may be roughly estimated as consisting of 40 beds, 40 tables, 40 chairs, one shovel and tongs, and one thermometer. The beds are ranged round the entire room, the tables and chairs a yard apart forming two rows down the centre; the thermometer is suspended from a beam, the shovel is chained to one fire-place, and the tongs to the other. ”

“ The sick are brought from the ships to the hospital by water, and go, or are carried up a wide stone stair to the receiving office. They are then stripped and bathed in the hospital to which they are sent, and their clothes are marked, and kept in a particular magazine. An iron crane is employed to land those who are badly wounded. In all the wards, as well as in the different store-rooms, and the apothecary room, the greatest order and cleanliness is observable.
The church does not appear to me to be arranged in correspondence with the rest of the establishment. ”

“ On one side of this hall are examination and dressing-rooms for males, with lavatory accommodation; and on the other side similar provision for females, with the addition of a nurses’ duty room. At the end of the central hall are two operating theatres, with recovery room adjoining each; one theatre for males, and the other for females. Between these theatres are rooms for sterilizers and dressings. An X-ray examination room is provided beyond the male examination room on the right of the hall. ”

“ If a room measures ten feet by twelve, there is always a temptation to place two beds in it if the hospital becomes crowded, and the advantage of single rooms is wholly lost. The number of single rooms in an institution should [71] be from fifteen per cent to twenty per cent of the population, varying with the character of the cases to be cared for. Second, Dormitories should have above fifty square feet of floor space per patient, and no dormitory should have more than fifty beds nor less than six. This, of course, applies to the wards for the chronic cases. ”

“ My Richmond friends never lost sight of me for one day during my service in that city. Nearly every day my little boy was sent for to play among happy children, far away from the impure atmosphere of the hospital, which was soon filled with patients suffering from almost every form of disease.
As the demand for more room became pressing, the three stories of the main building were successively utilized, as well as a large storage-room in the yard. The ground-floor contained the surgeons' and steward's offices, store-rooms, etc., while the second and third formed two immense sick-wards. ”

“ As to sanitation, “There have been improvements in the sanitary arrangements since our last visit.” “In the hospital in Camp IV. there is now being built a recreation room, where convalescents may sit, which will give more room for the patients; also a special sink has been provided for washing the hospital utensils, and new latrines have been installed. [115] They seem to be at work at this hospital to improve its condition. As Camp IV. has the largest number of older men interned, this hospital has more patients than others, and seemed rather crowded at the time of our visit.” ”

“ This building is of brick and concrete, with cement tile roof. In general, as indicated, the hospital consists of a central administrative and operative portion, connected to wings at either end by means of corridors which are also flanked by rooms. Racial segregation will take place by placing white and colored patients at opposite ends of the hospital. At each end of the hospital are provided surgical and medical wards, each connecting into a sun-room. ”

“ A little north of the center building and the fever hospital is the convalescent-room, a large, airy building, furnished inside with lounges, tables, chairs and the appurtenances for such simple games as draughts and dominoes. The upper story is devoted to the use of female patients. ”

“ In the new buildings that we have erected there are no wards. All of the rooms are private and each one is provided with a bath. The rooms—which are in groups of twenty-four—are all identical in size, in fittings, and in furnishings. There is no choice of rooms. It is planned that there shall be no choice of anything within the hospital. Every patient is on an equal footing with every other patient. ”

“ The glorious halls and corridors, the massive marble pillars, the splendid marble staircases, indicate wealth, but the perfection of the sanitary and scientific arrangements tells of long years of anxious thought and study and research. So perfectly is this marvellous hospital built that, in the event of plague or cholera breaking out to such an extent as to infect the building, the whole of the inside of the hospital can be removed and another hospital will still be left standing as complete as the other. ”