Ward (hospital)

“ The wards are all contiguous, and, as has been said, under the charge of a remarkably efficient Sister, who has charge also of the male operation ward immediately above. The little casualty wards, of course, add to the work, and greatly to the anxiety of watching; but certainly violent delirium tremens’ cases, alone and in a secure ward which can be darkened, appear often to quiet much sooner than where several of these wretches lie shouting to and at each other. Delirium tremens will never be a thing unknown in a Military Hospital. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All patients in the hospital who are seriously ill, whether they have been long in the wards or have been only just admitted, are placed on "the dangerous list" and have their names posted at the gate so that their relatives might be admitted at any time of the day or night.
A man very gravely injured had been taken into the accident ward. ”

“ Work in the wards has its compensations: here there is the human element. But only a portion of a unit such as ours can be detailed for ward work: the rest are either hewers of wood and drawers of water or else have their noses to a grindstone of clerical monotonousness beside which the ledger-keeping of a bank employee is a heaven of blissful excitements. You will find few hospital orderlies who are not "fed up"; you will find none who do not long for the war's end. And I fancy you will find very, very few who would not go on active service if they could. ”

“ In this second year of the war, the first army of V.A.D.'s, now promoted, has everywhere been succeeded by a fresh levy, aglow with the same eagerness and the same devotion as the first. Or I could dwell on the women's hospitals—especially the remarkable hospital in Endell Street, entirely officered by women; where some hundreds of male patients accept the surgical and medical care of women doctors, and adapt themselves to the light and easy discipline maintained by the women of the staff, with entire confidence and grateful good-will. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The medical officers attached to the hospital in our model city are allowed to hold but one appointment at the same time, and that for a limited period. Thus every medical man in the city obtains the equal advantage of hospital practice, and the value of the best medical and surgical skill is fairly equalised through the whole community.
In addition to the hospital building is a separate block, furnished with wards, constructed in the same way as the general wards, for the reception of children suffering from any of the infectious diseases. ”

“ The barracks look upon the Barrack Square, which is filled with lounging prisoners. The windows of the hospital-ward also look upon Barrack Square, and the prisoners are in constant communication with the patients. The hospital is a low stone building, capable of containing about twenty men, and faces the beach. ”

“ The hospital orderly is never—in theory at any rate—off duty. His free moments are regarded not as a right but as a favour: no freedom, at any time, can be guaranteed. He is liable to be called on in the middle of the night, or at the instant when he is going off duty, or when at a meal, or when resting, or when on the point of walking out in pursuance of the gentle art of courtship. ”

“ Its great Dining Hall is a splendid Receiving Ward for the sorting-out and clearance of newly-arrived convoys of patients. We should be poorly situated indeed if we had not our [Pg 72] Scottish baronial main building to be the hub of the hospital's activities, or rather the handle from which springs the fan of the hospital's great extension—the huts. Approaching the hospital the visitor sees nothing of those huts. As he walks up the drive he flatters himself that he has reached his destination. ”

“ It is a melancholy comfort to relatives and friends to be with the patient in his last hours, and this cannot be permitted in a ward without confusion and discomfort to other patients. When planning a ward for the care of the sick or the poor, the object, of course, is the saving of lives, but people will die in hospitals in spite of the best skill and care, and the poor man is surely entitled to a quiet place to die in. There is much in hospital life to blunt the sensibilities of those who live in such institutions constantly. ”

“ There was also a separate ward for delirious patients, with two beds, and a dwelling-house and sleeping apartments for two nurses and servants. The building of the hospital was commenced in July, 1883, and it was first used in the autumn of this year. ”

“ One of the lively episodes of hospital life, is the frequent marching away of such as are well enough to rejoin their regiments, or betake themselves to some convalescent camp. The ward master comes to the door of each room that is to be thinned, reads off a list of names, bids their owners look sharp and be ready when called for; and, as he vanishes, the rooms fall into an indescribable state of topsy-turvyness, as the boys begin to black their boots, brighten spurs, if they have them, overhaul knapsacks, make presents ”

“ Would all this they had gone through have given them greatness enough to face, down length of days, the little things together?
Hospital, Monday, June 12th
We never see them well. As soon as they are better at all they send them downstairs to the convalescent ward, and from [203] there they are marked for other hospitals, and in a day or two, one morning, I come to find them gone. The men who were evacuated at the beginning of Verdun did not even make the halt of the ward downstairs. ”

“ Then there is the memory of the boys in the shell-shock ward at this same hospital. I had a long visit with them. They were not permitted to come to the vesper service for fear something would happen to upset their nerves. But they made a special request that I come to visit them in their ward. After the service I went. I reached their ward about nine, and they arose to greet me. The nurse told me that they were more at ease on their feet than lying down, and so for two hours we stood and talked on our feet. ”

“ It is a mere matter of common sense to arrange some centre to which the patient can repair and employ his leisure when he is sufficiently well to potter about though not well enough to be discharged from hospital. Instead of idling in his ward and disturbing the patients who are still confined to bed—and who, often, are urgently in need of quietness—the convalescent departs to one or other of the recreation rooms, morning and [Pg 162] afternoon, where he can make as much noise as he likes and where he can meet and fraternise with his comrades from every front. ”

“ It is very desirable that in every regimental hospital, there should be an apartment appropriated to convalescents, whose diet and mode of living must remain under the direction of the surgeon, and who must themselves be in every respect, subject to the hospital regulations. A trusty non-commissioned officer must be appointed to the superintendance of the messing, and conduct of this particular ward. ”

“ Realizing the sympathy of America with all these scenes and sufferings, they do not fail to note the hospitals organized by the Universities of Chicago and of Harvard, staffed by American sisters and doctors, each providing thirty-four doctors and eighty nurses, and dealing with a thousand patients, and a convalescent depot of two thousand beds. Every day the ambulance train comes in, and splendid hospital ships are taking the brave wounded back to England for home and rest. ”

“ From the dressing station I was taken to a field hospital, about fifteen kilometers to the rear, and there placed in a ward in a tent. The purpose of the field hospital is to treat soldiers who are too severely wounded to be taken to base hospitals. My wound was again examined, cleaned and dressed and again the terrible swab went its depth. About 4 o'clock that afternoon I was loaded into another stretcher on an ambulance and taken to Base Hospital 51 at Toul. ”

“ It is just these badly defined functions in a base hospital which a chaplain can discharge so well.
We think also that women might be used in base hospitals as stenographers, ward maids, telephone operators, and the like. Base hospitals in the future are not likely to be housed in tents, and under rough conditions. At present, trained nurses are sent to the Stationary Hospitals. It seems a pity to waste fine young men, who could be combatants, as orderlies in a base hospital. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unlike the other wards, that "take in" new cases for a week and then have a rest, C. is always "taking in," as the men in charge see every new case that comes up to the hospital (except accidents) , and they can take them in if they like, as long as there are any beds empty in the ward; and if they don't think it is a particularly interesting case, it is passed on to the house surgeons or house physicians for the other wards; but, of course, they try their best to get all the most interesting cases for themselves ”

“ If Miss Parkins goes on the ward in a routine way as a patient, she will automatically be suspected by them and therefore become less valuable to us. But if she falls upon the street with a heart attack within four blocks of the hospital, arrives at the accident room entrance in an ambulance, and is admitted to Ward B, Bed 11.... ”

“ She could see lights within—the passing figures of nurses—rows of beds—and men in bed jackets—high rooms frescoed in bright colours.
'That used to be the Casino. Now it's a Red Cross Hospital. There are always doctors there. So when we moved him away from the camp, we took this little house close to the Hospital. The senior surgeon there can be often in and out. He's looking after him splendidly.'
A small room in a small house, built for summer lodgings by the sea; bare wooden walls and floor; a stove; open windows through which came the slow boom of waves breaking on a sandy shore ”

“ Still it had better be left to surgeons to say whether, in Military Hospitals, it would not be preferable to have, in each ward, only a portable bath, on wheels, covered with india-rubber, to be brought into the ward for any urgent case; and to take all the men able to walk, or safely to be carried, to the Hospital baths. Of these, some trustworthy, or intended and supposed to be trustworthy, man, who ought to rank as a non-commissioned officer, should have charge. An intelligent and respectable-looking man, a serjeant, has charge of the baths in the Garrison Hospital at Vienna. ”

“ The Serjeant of the Guard, attended by the Ward Master, ought, every Morning, to go round the Wards to call a Roll, and see that every Man is in his Ward; and to do the same at Night before the Hospital Doors are shut, and at this Time to order every Person out of the Hospital who does not belong to it. ”

“ Her ward was one of the two in the armory itself, which for a considerable time contained more patients than any other in that hospital. "Armory Square" being near the Potomac, usually received the most desperate cases, which could with difficulty be moved far. There could be no operating room connected with this ward, and the operations, however painful or dreadful, were of necessity performed in the ward itself. ”

“ It is in the hospital ward that the major portion of routine hospital work is accomplished, and where the nurses who will have much of the responsibility of the hospital work of the future will be trained in habits of accuracy and neatness, in proper systems of ward work and good hospital housekeeping. ”

“ The ward contains 39 children at present, suffering from injuries and being treated for various ailments. Perhaps some of them will never have another Christmas. But if you had closed your eyes and heard them laughing and singing, you would never have thought you were in a hospital. Many of them were able to sit up, and so that they could all be in one room, two were put in some beds. Those who could sit up had little red wrappers over their nighties, and propped up around the sides of the room, they looked for all the world like little animated red holly berries. ”

“ Also, by all means, let the scullery be opposite the Nurse’s room, and not between the ward and the room. As an invariable Hospital rule, rather more than elsewhere in Military Hospitals, publicity may be considered to be a very great police, and a still greater protection. It is far better that twenty-four patients should see the Nurse’s door than one or none; and that her room should open full upon the ward than into an intervening scullery. ”