NORSING IN THE TRANSVAAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 21, 19 September 1890, Page 15

NURSING IN THE TRANSVAAL.

I Miss Blenhebhassbtt, a nurse in one of the Johannesburg Homes, or Hoapitals, wrote a letter to England descriptive of her Hospital life there. The following extract from it has found its way into the Hosjntal : — May 18.— Our servants have rnn away — only a karlr boy remains for the work in the house and the house next door, where there are nine typhoid cases. Miss Eirkpatrick (late of Charing Cross Hospital) acts as Home Sister, helped by Miss Hickmaa (late Sister at Carmarthen Hospital). These two and tbe pro. have to do all the work of the Home to-day, sweeping, cleaning, etc. This is our day. Miss Mollett and I ara busy here doing the dinners. I hear Miss M. spouting Schiller in the dining-room whilst she is doing tbe gr ite out and lighting the fire. lam in the kitchen washing the breakfast things, and trying to make a sleepy kafir boy clean siucepans. I set up an opposition to Schiller, and begin, " Great wit* to madness nearly are ailed, And slight divisions do these wits divide." I wave a spoon at the karlr — culled Cornelius Agrippa. He drops his saucepan and disappears into a sort of packing-case house in tbe garden, where be lives ; there be lies down for half aa hour to compose his nerves. I give up Shakespeare and turn out an awful pantry. Miss Mollett comes and jets to work on the dinner. She has to cook it entirely for us, and for tbe convalescent patients next door, who have the ravenous, yet fastidious, convalescent appetite. We have great fun and langbing over tbe cleaning and the dinner, and finally very good soup and mince is produced for the patients, and some uneatable fried fish for us ; but, luckily, there is plenty of bread today, and some Dutch cheese, so we needn't starve. Here is a boy on horseback ; it is tbe butcher's boy come again for his little cheque. He comes every day. Igo and explain that we have no money. He in told so every day, and be always comes back looking quite hopeful. I tell bim he'll be paid the week of four Thursdays, and he rides off grinning from ear to ear. For this Home is really a dreadful 1 The late English clergyman here does not seem to have understood accounts. I'm sure be did his best, poor thing ; but since he left there has been a row about church affairs, and, as regards this Home, he csriainly conveyed the impression that there was plenty of money, and that Miss Mollett would be able to make this a nursing centre, have a hospital, etc., whereas there is an enormous debt ; and on arriving here Miss Mollett found £5 in the bank pour tout potage. She is a charming woman, with delightful manners, very well bred, and unusually cultured. Just the person to be at the head of Bart's, or some big London hospital, and just the last person who ought to be here cooking and cleaning. The people are extremely good, and help all they can, but there is no money in tbe place. The '■ Golden City "is bankrupt ; people leave it in shoals every day. Without money it is only possible just to scramble aloug and look after the few who can be admitted to tbe Home. We have eleven beds and a couple of wards have been run up at tbe back, which will be opened shortly. The people are getting up a subscription ball for the Home, so the butcher's boy has a chance. The patients we take in are supposedjto pay £5 a week, stinmlante,doctor's bill's and drugs extra ; they can't always pay, poor lads, and it seems a good veal to ask of them, and yet what can oue do in a place, where eggs are 6s a dozen, milk 6d a pint, and everything else dear in proportion. Apropos of drugs, I am so bad, that I bave wondered whether the doctors are in partnership with the chemists I You never saw anything to compare with tbe patients' prescription boards. They are really curiosities of literature, and one wonders that any enteric case, swallowing such a quantity of horrible stuff, and changing his medicine nearly every day, should ever survive. But some of them do recover, in spite of the treatment ; about 20 per cent. die. Miss Sleeman, from Guy's, the nurse who came out with me, is nursing a fever case a little way out of Johannesburg, but the epidemic is disappearing, and so, I hear, are a good many " bars." Tbe two facts probably have some connection ! The most intolerable thing here is the dirt. There is a thick, sticky red dust everywhere. If you walk out, you come in coated with it, and there is very little water and considerable difficulty about washing. Our home looks out on Government Square, a sort of square of dust and mud, with zinc shanties scattered irregularly over it. No letters are delivered here. We bave a box at tbe Post Office with a key, and we go and fetch them ourselves. It is very curious to see tbe Post Office pigeonholed to the ceiling with these boxes. — On Monday afternoons, when tbe English mail comes in, you may imsgioe how crowded tbe place is. I will not tell you my impressions of Johannesburg, or whether I was wise or foolish in coming here. You shall draw your own conclusions from the above facts, and tell me what they are.