Sick leave

“ After six months’ service each nurse is entitled to 15 days’ leave with pay, but up to now we have not been{172} able to spare the nurses, for we have always a few who are sick. I have six sick ones over in the Sick Sisters’ Hospital now, but if things stay as they are now, I won’t have to send for the ones who are on leave. My sick ladies are not very sick. One has an infected finger, another an infected big toe, and the others have slight fevers, or very bad colds which are really the grippe. It is such a blessing that we have such a splendid place to send our sick nurses. ”

“ Second, we all know record numbers of Americans are providing for aging or ailing loved ones at home. It's a loving but potentially very expensive choice. That's why, beginning later this month, all Federal employees will be able to take up to 12 weeks paid sick leave that they've earned to nurse an ailing child or parent back to health. If every company in America followed this example, half of all our workers would have this important benefit for their families. ”

“ While a nurse is supposed to be sufficiently well and strong to go on duty every day, in all weathers and at all seasons of the year, a reasonable allowance for illness should nevertheless be made. Two weeks’ annual sick-leave is a good allowance. ”

“ We shouldn’t have to make choices like that in America. That’s why I’ve repeatedly called on the Republican Congress to pass a law guaranteeing most workers in America the chance to earn seven days of paid sick leave each year. ”

“ But we’ve also worked with states, cities, and businesses to get the job done – and many have, pointing to research showing that paid leave actually helps their bottom line. In fact, since I took office, another ten million private sector workers have gained paid sick leave – making up a record share of our workforce.
Unfortunately, there are still about 40 million private sector workers who don’t get a single day. ”

“ Retirement not to be increased by unused sick leave. (1) Notwithstanding any existing Federal or State law, the retirement benefits of an employee of the state or any political subdivision of the state retiring on or after January 1, 1995, shall not in any way be increased as a result of or due to unused sick leave. ”

“ Those who are ever so superficially acquainted with the homes and difficulties of the poorer classes in London know that the period of debility after sickness, when the general hospital has discharged the patient, or when the parish doctor has taken his leave, is a terrible time. Too weak to work, without means to buy even common nourishment at the crisis when plentiful food is requisite, and stimulated to try to labour when the heart has only just strength to beat, men and women are ready to faint and to perish unless helping hands be held out to them. ”

“ It is higher not only in actual money paid, but in privileges granted, a vacation of 30 actual working days, or 5 weeks each year, with additional time running in some departments as high as 30 days for sick leave and the generous provisions of the retirement act. No other body of public servants ever occupied such a fortunate position. ”

“ Since its enactment millions of Americans have been able to take unpaid leave to care for a newborn child or to be with a family member who's sick. I know that many Americans would have lost their jobs if it weren't for the family leave law. ”

“ In August, 1847, there were a hundred and four officers on sick leave, besides visitors and those residing on the Neilgherries. The total number of Europeans, children included, was between five and six hundred. It is extremely difficult to estimate the number of the hill people. ”

“ It is possible that some of these men may have dropped out of the column from exhaustion on the march, fallen sick and had been taken to some hospital and died without identification. Failing to report at roll-call and being unaccounted for, they would be carried on the company rolls as "absent without leave," until prolonged absence without information would compel the adding of the fearful word "deserted." There were instances where men taken sick made their way home without leave and were marked deserters. After recovering from a severe case of "army fever" they returned again to duty. ”

“ The nurse should not confine herself to the sick-room more than six hours at a time. She should eat her food regularly, sleep at regular periods, and take exercise daily in the open air. To do this, let her quietly leave the room when the patient is sleeping. A watcher, or temporary nurse, may supply her place. There is but little danger of contracting disease, if the nurse attends to the simple laws of health, and remains not more than six hours at a time in the sick-room. ”

“ If one of your employees comes to work shivering, give him three days' vacation on full pay. If it runs through the force, you'll lose five times as much in enforced sick-leaves, slowness, and mistakes. ”

“ If a laborer reported sick, shall be at any time found absent from the estate without leave, or is trespassing about the estate, or found occupied with work requiring health, he shall be considered skulking and wilfully absent from work. ”

“ We must prepare for the change by strapping thick coats to our saddle-bows, and see that our servants are properly clothed in cloths and flannels. Otherwise, we render ourselves liable to the peine forte et dure of a catarrh of three months’ probable duration, and our domestics will certainly be floored by fever and ague, cholera or rheumatism. ”

“ "Is there no hope?" the sick man said.
The silent doctor shook his head,
And took his leave with unfeigned sorrow
To lose a patient on the morrow. ”

“ And worst of all, between medicines and necessaries for the sick, the three months' pension was quite used up, and when the old soldier's nursing had pulled through the fierceness of the fever, there was nothing but black bread left in the house—and black bread was almost the same as no bread at all to the dainty appetities the fever had left; and that was what he had to think of, and think of, as he sat in the cottage door. ”

“ Although relieved of all unnecessary fatigue, having at my command nurses and servants to carry out my plans for the sick, the burden of their suffering lay heavy upon my own heart. The already full wards of the hospital now became crowded. For many of the gallant men who a few weeks before had marched so gayly to their doom were brought back bearing horrible, ghastly wounds.
Anxious responsibility murdered sleep. A shuddering horror, a consuming pity, possessed me as often as dreadful groans from the operating-room reached my ears. ”

“ It is to be borne in mind that these nurses found no general table, no table at all but such as they could provide, find the food for, and cook for themselves, for the sick, the children, and the old and helpless who had escaped the fever and must be cared for. No patient could be left till the crisis was passed, and many are their records of seventy-two hours without change or sleep or scarcely sitting down. ”

“ Her husband had been sick for several months, which put them all behind, though now he was getting work enough.
"'You know how it is, sir,' she said, 'with working people: if a man falls out of work for a day, the family feels it for a week after. We can hardly make the two ends meet when he's well, and the moment he is sick it comes hard upon us. ”

“ I forgot to tell you that in the hospital were several sick babies, whose mothers were permitted to suspend their field labour, in order to nurse them. Upon addressing some remonstrances to one of these, who, besides having a sick child, was ill herself, about the horribly dirty condition of her baby, she assured me that it was impossible for them to keep their children clean, that they went out to work at daybreak, and did not get their tasks done till evening, and that then they were too tired and worn out to do anything but throw themselves down and sleep. ”

“ The patient should sleep as much as possible, should take long intervals of rest, and should continue no occupation to the point of fatigue. A patient who has been ill in a hospital or who has had at home the exclusive services of a nurse or an attendant, often finds the period following his return or following the nurse's departure an exceedingly difficult transition. The family should not expect or allow him to resume too many duties at a time when the mere acts of bathing and dressing may demand all the strength he has. ”

“ But the highest benefit will be the change and cheer it will introduce into the monotony of hospital life. If you are sick at home, you are glad to have your neighbor step in and bring the healthy bracing air of out-door life into the dimness and languor of your invalid existence. Much more does the sick soldier like it,—for ennui, far more than pain, is his great burden. When I was at Washington, I accepted with great satisfaction an invitation to go with a Sanitary visitor on her round of duty. ”

“ And yet, painful as the condition of the working woman is, it is relatively fortunate. Should work fail her for one day, two days, what then? Should sickness come—sickness almost always occasioned by unwholesome food, want of fresh air, necessary attention, and good rest; sickness, often so enervating as to render work impossible; though not so dangerous as to procure the sufferer a bed in an hospital—what becomes of the hapless wretches then? The mind hesitates, and shrinks from dwelling on such gloomy pictures. ”

“ It was a fundamental principle that the régime of the workhouse should apply uniformly to all the pauper inmates whatever their past character, or present conduct, with the indispensable minimum of deviation for senility, infancy, and actual infirmity from sickness or otherwise. Even the sick are almost entirely ignored in the Orders of the Central Authority, and there is the very minimum of recognition of any hospital provision. ”

“ And their attendants, worn by constant labour, suffered most severely, insomuch that men pitied them no less than those who were ill, not from any danger of contagion [108] (for no physician nor other person fell sick from contact with the sick or dead; since many employed constantly in nursing or burying, against all expectations, survived this service, and many, for whose illness no cause could be discovered, died at once) , but on account of their hard labour did they pity them. ”

“ Let them state whether they know that, because of the small pay and the dearness of food, and because of their discomfort and their heavy toil in mounting guard and in sentinel duty, many fall sick daily and die; and that for this reason, the said hospital always contains more sick men than it can take care of. ”

“ To escape this risk of infection for them, we sisters used to try to do all for them in their own tents as long as we possibly could, and the poor chaps were so grateful to us, and the day sisters (who were equally keen not to have them sent down) used to tell us that the men always assured the medical officers that they had everything they wanted in the night. You know how at home if a sick man wakes up, and is alone for a few minutes, he thinks he is being neglected, but these poor chaps must have many lonely hours in the dark tents, and yet they never complain ”

“ Then, too, thousands of public, private and parochial school teachers have been actively engaged in nursing, and these teachers should have a few days of rest—preferably a week—and ought to be absent from work at the bedsides of the sick for that period of time before returning to the schools or to crowded services. ”

“ There is too much visiting in the sick room, too many people share the care of the patient, the nurse mingles too freely with other members of the family, and there is not enough care to keep the soiled bedding, garments and refuse of the sick room absolutely separated from that of the rest of the house. ”

“ To announce baldly in the sick-room that the patient is tired and the visitor must go, will only elicit aggrieved protests from both. In illness lasting only a day or two all visitors should be discouraged; during colds, because they are communicable; during general fatigue, headaches, digestive upsets, and painful menstruation, because rest and quiet are highly desirable. Visitors at such times too frequently give injudicious sympathy, and may actually delay the recovery of patients who enjoy playing the rôle of interesting invalid. ”

“ There are a good many to-night who haven’t any fire. We have had our supper. There are a good many who must go without. If you will notice in the streets to-morrow, you will see little feet shoeless, stockingless. People who go without food, and fire, and sufficient clothing, get sick, have fevers, diphtheria, what not? But, unfortunately, the fevers, and so forth, won’t stay shut up in alleys and tumble-down tenements ”

“ The first rule, therefore, to be observed in nursing even bad colds, where the sufferer may have to stay in bed a few days, is to send all the linen he has been wearing to the wash at once, and to put away everything else in its proper place. Boots should never be allowed in a sick-room, for the leather and blacking is apt to smell disagreeably and they ought immediately to be removed to another place. ”

“ Even during the night he is often restless and depressed, insomuch that refreshing sleep is kept a stranger to his eyes. If unfortunately the poor labourer is taken sick in such weather, perhaps far removed from, or unable to employ, a physician, how great must be his hazard. ”

“ That our sick soldiers (officers and men) should be entirely dependent for nursing, even in times of the most dangerous illness, on the tender mercies of 'the orderly on duty,' who, whether kind-hearted or the reverse, was necessarily utterly untrained and ignorant of the requirements of sickness, was a source of unhappiness to her, and had been felt as a cruel want by many ”