NATIONAL HOSPITAL DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22260, 12 May 1934, Page 2

NATIONAL HOSPITAL DAY

ANNUAL COMMEMORATION TO-MORROW (Contributed.) This is the anniversary of the_ birth of Florence Nightingale, on which day National Hospital Day is celebrated throughout the world. The celebration of National Hospital Day had its inception in America, and, through the American Hospitals Association, has spread the suggestion of celebrating this day throughout the world. It is not made a day of collections, but one in which the objects and aims of hospitals are brought prominently before the public, in order that the public which subscribes the money to carry on these great institutions may be reminded of the existence of the hospital and of the work it is called upon to do in the community. National Hospital Day has been set aside as the one day in the year when the hospitals are encouraged to show their wares and to demonstrate their worth to the public. This is done with a view to inspiring confidence, respect and appreciation for these institutions. .Whether the hospital is large or small, it will benefit not only in its observance of the day, but in the years that follow in inspiring among the people a closer devotion to, and a better perception of the work and worth of, such institutions. The hospital is the creation of a highly socialminded people. It is not a finished produce but a growing, changing thing, responsive to the evolutionary needs of the sick and sensitive to the social, historical, and economic trends of the times. In order that the people may properly interpret and appreciate a hospital and, in order that the hospital in turn may correctly gauge both the desires and the necessity of the people in respect of hospital care, there must be established a moat intimate, sympathetic relationship between the community and its institutions. This relationship, once established, must < be nurtured and eultvated like a growing flower, and watered and strengthened with all those careful concerns for the sick that a well ordered hospital typi•fies. We must use the spoken word, the radio, the printed page, and all the other tangible and intangible things that help us to create and maintain the friendly interests of our communities, But with all these measures given their proper force, the most important values in the equation of friendly relationships are personal contacts, not only with the sick who enter our wards but with their friends and with the friends of our hospitals and the people of our communities when they arc well and are not in need of hospital care. On National Hospital Day in 1933, the Hon. Lewis Bernays, British Consulgeneral in Illinois, delivered in Chicago an address which appears in the Bulletin of the American Hospital Association, and extracts may well be quoted to extend National Hospital Day;— I come In all humility to talk as a layman deeply thankful for the blessings afforded to the present generation by the modem hospital, the skilled physicians and surgeons who attend It, and the charming ministering angels who follow in the footsteps of her whose birth wo commemorate to-day. Our mood is one of thanksgiving. The tendency to take for granted things to which we are accustomed Is very natural, and we probably all suffer from It in some measure, In no sphere is this more noticeable than in the field of caring for the sick. We know there Is a hospital within easy reach; we take It for granted that, If needed, it will fetch us, and that once within Its walls all the resources of science and hygiene will he set In motion to restore us to health. But it was not always thus. Even a cursory survey of the history of the treatment of disease brings out the fact that the progress of the last 100 years—l might almost say the last 50 years—has been greater than that of all the centuries which preceded them. The wonders of the human body are so great and numerous that I need not dwell upon them. The powers of healing found in Nature amaze us the more wo study them, but somehow, somewhere, Nature appears to have slipped a cog or two, with the result that since time immemorial flesh has been heir to the most terrible instils involving the most awful human fluttering. But it begins to look as though by patient scientific research we might eventually find means of tracing the cog or two which nature failed to make perfectly automatic. How devoutly thankful we should be for this Immense advance! What sufferings it has spared and what hopes for the future does it not encourage! These hopes are bounded only by our imagination'and, perhaps, science and preventive medicine may lead us to a point where we shall regard hospitals as the places wo turn to for the maintenance rather than the restoration of health. The discovery of vitamins certainly points in that direction. It may well, in the future, be with us as with, the individual who sought insurance to cover a burglary risk. The insurance company said it would ably consider it if the applicant would coramy with its requirements, a list of bolts, locks, and bars to be Installed in the building, when the insurance agent called a few days later iu the hope of completing t ic deal the prospect informed him that he bad adopted the company’s recommendations—that his place was now as strong as a fortress and ho would not need any insurance. Preventive medicine may lead to wonderful things in the future, but already the hospital is for all of us an inestimable boon, insuring our health, prolonging • our days, and allaying our sufferings. , „ ~ Let us glance for one moment at the past. Jteiatively nothing is known of nursing prior to the Christian era. There is a faint record of organised medical treatment among the Babylonians where apparently the system was followed wbic.i still prevails in parts of the Orient, of paying the medicine man when you arc well and fining him when you are ill, but remembering bow recently our own sick were sent to the barber for attention we may leave the nature and the quality of that treatment to the imagination. At one time in Egypt those who became bedridden were dragged out of their dwellings and laid in the street, where passers-by were expected to help them by such advice as might suggest itself from their own individual experience. Ib is well to pause aud reflect on tho hopeless sufferings implied in such proceedings. The oldest hospital in England is St.Bartholomew’s, founded In 1123, followed by St. Thomas’s in 1215. No doubt these institutions marked a great step forward, but it does not need much imagination to realise how tremendous was their advance after the introduction into those hospitals of the scientifically trained women nurse. At the end of the earth I have myself seen hospitals where these ministering angels , were absent, others where they were but partly trained, and when I think of those places I rejoice in the realisation that in England and in this country we have in our hospitals women of the type represented by this fine group of nurses—educated, trained, kindly, spotless, manicured, efficient —to help us back to health. As 1 look at these ladies a sentence of Carlyle comes to my mind: —” Wondrous is the power of cheerfulness —altogether beyond calculation its powers of endurance.” All honour to Florence Nightingale, that great Englishwoman who by precept and example did so much for suffering humanity! How gratifying to me to see the honour paid to her in this country! Born in 1820, she lived in an age when it required courage and high resolve for an educated woman to break through the tradition which expected her to spend her life within the shelter of her family. She seems to have had a call to vocation so clear, so compelling as to brook no resistance, and at an early ago she sought training aud experience in nursing. She had throughout her youth been appalled by the cruel neglect to which soldiers wounded in battle or overtaken by diseases had always been exposed in the armies of all countries and had longed to point the way to kindlier methods. When the Crimean War broke out she raised a contingent of thirty-eight volunteer nurses who served at Scutari for nearly two years, toiling ceaselessly for tho alleviation of suffering among the troops. Her influence was magnetic. Florence Nightingale came to be almost worshipped by the men for whom she cared. Always, before retiring, lantern In hand, she would make her nightly rounds of the hosnltal wards, and It is said that men would kiss the place where her shadow had fallen, so ardently, not to say devoutly, did they look up to her. Longfellow has immortalised this in his poem to the Lady with the Lamp : Lo. In that house of misery A iady with a lamp I see Pass through the glimmering gloom. And flit from room to room. And slow, as in a dream of bliss, Tho speechless sufferer turns to kiss Her shadow as it fails Upon the darkening walls. On England's annals through the long Hereafter of her speech and song. That light its rays shall cast From portals of the past. A lady with a lamp shall stand, In the great history of the land, A noble type of good, Heroic womanhood. The Lady with the Lamp still lights the history of that land and of this, and In paying tribute to her now I desire also to associate with her the hundreds and thousands of English-speaking women who, following her shining example, have brought cheer and comfort and courage to the sick in peace and war. The services of those in the Great War still live in our experience and command our boundless respect and gratitude and admiration.

When Florence Nightingale returned from Scutari the value of her amazing contribution to our civilisation was recognised by her friends and admirers, who raised the sum of £50,000. which was presented to her in gratitude. With this sum she founded a training school for nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, from which the profession of trained women nurses may bo .said (o have gained the impetus which has made it what it is 10-day. It Is not too much, perhaps, to claim for Florence Nightingale’s demonstration of what could be done by care for the wounded in the Crimean War the urge which led to the establishment of the International Red Cross Society. Nor is it improbable that when William Rathbone In England conceived the idea of taking hygiene and nursing care to the homes of the poor and established the first organisation for district or visiting nursing, he was inspired to his efforts by Florence Nightingale’s example. It is said that a prophet is not without honour except among his own people. I am happy in the thought that Miss Nightingale found honour in full measure among her own people, where her name has always been one to conjure with. In 1007 she was the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit, and in 1908 she was given the Freedom of the City of London. To-day is hospital day. Let us give thanks for our hospitals. None of us knows how likely we are to come Into contact with hospitals. The chances are that most of us at one time or another will seek relief from pain and suffering in one sooner or later; but whether we escape the need or not we must all recognise gratefully the selfsacrificing zeal of those who as scientists. physicians, surgeons, nurses, make them the centre of healing that they are.