NURSING IN THE EARLY DAYS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26125, 30 May 1950, Page 2

NURSING IN THE EARLY DAYS

DEVELOPMENT IN CANTERBURY ADDRESS BY DR. F. O. BENNETT “Ten years after the pilgrim fathers landed in Canterbury they had theatres, a post office, a railway, the beginning of a museum, a library, and churches, and practically all the civil amenities we have now; but they did not have a hospital, except a small one at Lyttelton,” said Dr. F. O. Bennett when he spoke yesterday on nursing in the early days of Canterbury at the annual meeting of the Nurse Maude District Nursing Association. It might be asked why these clever people had forgotten to bring a hospital, said Dr. Bennett. They had not forgotten to bring it. They had looked around England, seen the hospitals there, and deliberately left them behind. “In those days medical treatment was very poor,, operations were negligible and such as were done, were done without anaesthetics,” said Dr. Bennett. The “Lancet” had stated in 1848 that it was not defensible for any doctor to give an anaesthetic for any operation. “This position was changed overnight by a woman—Queen Victoria —who had chloroform at the birth of her seventh son. Anaesthetics then became not only right and proper, but also fashionable.” Dr. Bennett said. “Our forefathers came out with the memories of the poor, had days of the medical world of the first half of the nineteenth century,” continued Dr. Bennett. “There . were a few very good nurses in Roman Catholic hospitals where the nuns did the nursing. These were of a very high standard, but they were very few. In 1850 nursing was undertaken by persons on practically the lowest rung of the social ladder.” Dr. Barnett quoted one writer who described the nurses of the time as “dowdy looking females of drunken and dubious habits.” The matron of the hospital at Lyttelton was paid £66 a year and from this amount she had to engage and pay a boy to carry water and wood for the hospital. In 1862 the present hospital in Christchurch was built. The hospital board of the time, in spite of its conscientious work, was activated by the necessity for economy and was certainly not conscious of the necessity for the very best medical and nursing treatment of patients. The matron required no training. In any case there was no training. A nurse got her position by being on the spot when a vacancy occurred. She could only be sure of being on the spot by being a laundry or kitchen hand or a ward maid. “For 30 years whenever a vacancy occurred it was filled by one of the maids,” Dr. Bennett said. From 1860 to 1890 nurses were paid £3O a year and a night nurse occasionally got £35. Quite often, patients, when sufficiently recovered, were put on as temporary nurses. In 1889 holidays for nurses were introduced. They were given two weeks a year. In 1891 the teaching of nurses began. Nurse Maude was appointed matron of the Christchurch Hospital in July. 1893. Dr. Bennett continued. Six months later the nurses' home was begun. From 1890 onwards there was a rapid improvement in nursing. “Nurses now have reasonably good conditions. What they have got they have got by public recognition of their service," Dr Bennett added. Nurse Maude had It d ■* vision of what nurses could d-> ’ven the opportunities and faciE She could have j agitated within ■' ' -spital. in which I case she would ■. •st certainly have I been dismissed. She chose to get out where there was freedom and liberty I to do the work she knew she could I do, and she did .it.