THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL AND NUNS IN WORKHOUSES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIII, Issue 40, 31 January 1896, Page 11

THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL AND NUNS IN WORKHOUSES.

The suspension of the A.thlone Guardianß for the appointment of nuns as nurses in opposition to tbe Local Government Board will be remembered. They felt that the workhouse nun is the one hope of workhouse reform in Ireland. Their feelings on the point have received strong confirmation from the results of a special kquiry made by The British Medical Journal:—" Those who have been saddened," says the curremt isaue of the Journal, " by previous reports of the condition of the sick poor io Irish workhouses will be cheered by our commissioner's account of Ballyshaonon Union Infirmary. Eighteen months before the visit was p tid a community of Boman Catholic nuns had taken over the management of the workhouse. *' In conversation with the superior,' writes the commissioner,' we learn that this house had until lately bson qiite as bad as others on which we have already commented : pauper cursing prevailed, and with it the attendant evil of black-m tiling, the demoralised creatures preying on the helpless inmates, robbing them of their tea, tobacco money, or any mercantile article on which they can lay hands before they will give them such services as they are told off. to do, and for which they receive extra rations from tbe Guardians. Rather than go back to tbat oft-told tale let us reiord our admiration of the work done in the short eighteen months which have elapsed between the date of our visit and the day when the nuns took possession. The anperior, by filling the matron's pas', has been able to make her influence felt in almost every department, and it is clear tbat the board has been ready to second her efforts. Tbe nursing staff consists of the superior, three nuns, and tbe night nurse, tbe supernr being also matron of the workhouse.' The night nurse is trained but she ' works from written instructions left by the nuns.' The superior, clearly a woman of rare capacity and tact, took on herself tbe office of matron, and with the willing co-operation of the medical officer, the Guardians, and the master, has in tbat short time worked wonders. The structure is the same, the sanitary arrangements were at the time of tbe visit of the old primitive kind, but order, efficiency and, above all, humanity, now prevail in the management. Tbe moral of it is tbat capacity and self-devotion are not *o be thwarted by the worst system ever invented, buch work as that of the good nuns at Ballyshannon brings us nearer the day of a general reform in the administration of tbe Poor Law."