December 1916
Our Editor said to me the other day, "Matron, I remember when I was a ward orderly, one day you came through the ward. It seemed to me that you flashed through. Very soon afterwards Sister got a message from you to send the two bed-tables with the broken legs that were being used up to the office to be mended." He then asked me how I apparently went through a ward, not taking much notice, but in reality taking everything in practically at a glance.
This takes me back to my first probationer days in hospital. I started on a Sunday morning in a large ward for women. All were so busy they had no time for the new probationer, so I took shelter in the kitchen with a very superior ward-maid, who gave me to understand that I was only a pro., and had better not make a mess in her kitchen. She was busy washing up dishes, and suggested to me that if I had nothing to do I might help her. So I began. I wasn't left in peace very long, though. Sister came out and wanted to know "What I was doing in the kitchen when there was an emergency operation just going down to theatre." I inwardly wondered what that was, but was too frightened to ask, so meekly went into the ward again and waited till a staff nurse (whom I got to love very dearly afterwards) saw me, and said, "Well, is there anything you can do? Can you wash the baby?" I said I could try (with my heart in my mouth). Wash a baby indeed - when I had never even seen one, close to, before! However, I tried, and, after undoing numerous garments - it seemed to me - I managed to get that infant into a bath. I never was so frightened in my life, and I almost prayed its head would not roll off before I got it out. It was a dreadful experience, but I lived through it, and afterwards, when I had charge of that same ward, and walked about during the best part of the night with a roaring infant under my arm, I often thought of that first baby I bathed and did not kill.
I don't remember much else about that first day in hospital, but I gradually found my way round, and soon got into the work of the ward. I often think what a hopeless idiot I was and of the many stupid things I did, and wonder how my staff nurse had the patience to go on teaching me. She used to talk to me while we were rushing round in the morning making beds (and only those who have trained know what that means). It was the only time we had for talking to each other. One day she said to me, "Never go out of the ward empty-handed, there is always something to take out with you. Tidy up your ward as you go along." I never forgot that, and I think this was the beginning of my taking an interest in my work and cultivating my powers of observation. Often during those dreadful first days in hospital I should have gone back home - I was so utterly tired out and crushed by everything - if it had not been for my pride. I wanted to do something, like so many other girls, and I worried my family to such an extent that at last my father said, "Very well, let her go, she will be back in a week." It it hadn't been for that remark I certainly should have been back in less than a week. But I made up my mind to stay over the week, so that my father could not say, "I told you so." And at the end of that time I didn't want to go back. The work was far too interesting, and, in spite of aching feet and tired body, the work never lost its interest.
Today when I open a ward door I see at a glance which of the nursing Sisters 'tidy up as they go along.' The work in a large military hospital like this is enormous, where we bet sometimes as many as twenty new patients, mostly stretcher cases, into a ward at one convoy. We never even dreamed of it before the war. If we got two or three new patients into a ward in one day we were very busy indeed. But now we take in by hundreds, and still we work on, and, in spite of being tired out sometimes, we love it, and cannot do enough for the men who are doing such a lot for us.
The other night I was watching the men go out of the concert - a happy, cheerful crowd. Nearly at the end of the procession I could see the D corridor men lining up, the blind ones carefully being put in between those who had one eye left, single file, with their hands on each other's shoulders. At a given order from the front they began to march, and when they got opposite to me they all roared, "Good night, Matron." Evidently the blind ones had been told where I was, and had agreed all to say "Good night" to me together. When things like that happen it makes one feel one can't bear it, but when I heard them marching out of the room singing and keeping in step with the music, one thanks God that we are able to do something for them, and whatever private grievances we may have, and however badly we consider we are treated at times, we all know our patients are happy.
EDITH HOLDEN
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