by Mary Hazard
I looked imploringly at Dr Thomas: ‘Oh God, what are we going to do?’ ‘It’s not “we”, nurse, it’s “you”, for a start,’ snapped Dr Thomas, bristling at me. ‘First, you’re going to shut your mouth, and, second, we’re going to admit him,’ said Dr Thomas. ‘He’s still alive, so we have to treat him.’ I looked down at the moving mass, and nearly fainted. What would Sister say? If the Beetle saw this I’d be skinned alive. I was horrified. ‘Where are we going to put him?’ I could hear my voice was getting higher, becoming more of a strangled squeak with every question. Dr Thomas was tired, irritable and fed up with me, so he started off in his usual patronising tones: ‘Look, if you have an emergency case you put them in the middle of the ward, in a bed, so that’s what you are going to do.’ I looked down at the hairy, dishevelled heap on the stretcher under the red blankets, which were beginning to heave. Dr Thomas looked for a moment, then yawned. He moved away indifferently, saying over his shoulder, ‘But he’ll have to have a bath first.’ ‘It’s two in the morning,’ I said, horrified. ‘How can we do that?’ Dr Thomas rubbed his eyes and yawned again. ‘Well, that’s your problem, nurse. I’m going back to bed.’ And with that he ambled off in the direction of the sleeping quarters, stethoscope slung over his shoulder, coat undone, leaving me entirely alone and in charge of the poor old freezing, infested tramp.
I looked at this great lump of lice-riddled man under his red blankets and racked my brains: What on earth was I going to do with him? Thanks, Dr Thomas! My patient was a big, heavy man and I gave him a bit of a push on his trolley, and it hardly moved, so I could see it was going to be quite a job. His eyes were closed, and he was the colour of chemical sludge, so I pulled the blankets round him so he looked like a large red sausage, with just a big veiny nose sticking out. I held my breath as I looked around Casualty – thank Christ it was pretty quiet, and there was no sign of the Beetle anywhere. She was whom I dreaded most: if she scuttled into view, her keys rattling, her shoes clicking, her beady eyes picking up everything, I knew I’d be for it. I had to act fast.
So I tiptoed along, wheeling my crawling quarry, up to the men’s medical ward and tracked down my Irish friend, Carrie, who was also on night duty. I hovered at the end of the ward and waved to her at the desk. ‘Psssst!’ I whispered. She looked up and smiled at me, but I gestured to her, frenziedly, to come over and put my finger up to my lips to denote ‘hush’. ‘I’ve got a problem,’ I whispered maniacally as she arrived, and blurted out the whole scenario, hoping she didn’t look too closely at my patient. All the time I was wondering if he was about to pop his clogs as I was doing nothing to raise his temperature yet; it was only mine that was going through the roof. Carrie rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Why are you always doing it, Mary?’ ‘I don’t know, but what was I to do?’ I replied, groaning. ‘Why does it always happen to me?’ Carrie was exasperated, but being a pal she could see I really needed help. Part of the unspoken code between us nurses was that we helped each other, no matter what, if we could. We were in the same boat, as nurses, and we had to pull in the same direction, together. It was the only way we could survive the hospital regime.
Luckily things were quiet on her ward that night, so she slipped away and together we rolled Mr Lousy into the bathroom, which was a huge white tiled room off the side of the ward. ‘I’ll have to keep an eye on things,’ Carrie whispered. ‘I’ve got a full ward, and a couple on the way out.’ ‘Of course,’ I said, desperate that nothing would take her from me, as I had no idea how I was going to handle my man alone. We manoeuvred the trolley next to the big white bath that was in the middle of the room. It was an old-fashioned type of six-foot-long ceramic bath with huge brass taps one end, and it had big feet (rather like me, I thought) and high sides. Carrie pulled back the top red blanket and I heard a little scream: ‘God, Mary, he’s crawling.’ I bit my lip, and could barely look. I put on the taps full blast as we had to get him into a warm bath as soon as possible. He had hypothermia and it was already three in the morning, which was a vulnerable time if he was going to snuff it. The water had to be warm, not too hot, as we had to warm him up gradually, literally thaw him out. But time was running out, and he was almost unconscious: he was still frozen and getting paler by the minute. We put loads of liquid Dettol in the bath, so it stank to high heaven, but it was the only way. We just worked against the clock all the while, and I asked Carrie if the Beetle had been round yet. Apparently she’d done her rounds an hour ago and wouldn’t be back until five, so we still had a bit of time left, luckily.
The tramp’s clothes were absolutely filthy. I’d never seen anything so disgusting in my life. They disintegrated as we pulled and cut them off, layer after revolting layer. And, boy, was he alive alive-oh, with lice almost as big as beetles crawling over everywhere. We got some newspaper and wrapped up his clothes, thinking they’d go straight into the hospital incinerator. He had a few coins which we put on the side. Apart from that he had nothing on him – just a pencil stub, a bit of baccy and cigarette papers. Finally, he was stripped and he was all filthy skin and bone. His skin was impregnated with dirt, in deep stripes, and was very hairy, which the creepy-crawlies obviously loved. What a warm, stinky habitat to nest in. We did a one, two, three, heave together and got him from the trolley into the deep, warm disinfectant bath, with me holding him under his smelly, skinny armpits and Carrie at the black feet end. The lice were running riot now: running over the water, up the sides of the bath, and as he hit the suds they started pouring out of his hair, his ears, his armpits and his pubes. The water began to turn black; it was a nightmare.
Undaunted, and still with an eye on the clock, I poured liquid soap solution on his head and started scrubbing. Carrie started at his feet, doing the same. We scrubbed and we scrubbed, and worked our way along every inch of his poor old, bony body. His pubes were dancing with the beasts; Carrie got there first and I heard, ‘Yuk, Mary, this is absolutely disgusting.’ I had to agree, although I couldn’t speak, as I didn’t really want to open my mouth (just in case something got in there). After twenty minutes the water was so dense with dead lice we pulled out the brass bung which was the plug, and refilled the bath again, with warmer water this time. Carrie nipped into the ward and checked on her patients, while I took my man’s pulse. He was warming up a little, but his pulse was still faint – however, a bit better than before, and he was still alive. His eyes were closed, as he was in a semi-comatose state; he was very heavy to move around and I had to keep him from sinking under the water. Meanwhile I filled up the bath again, and repeated the scrubbing process: scrubbing, rubbing, de-lousing and sudsing. Carrie came back; no dead bodies on the ward, either, as yet, thank God. We got a comb and started to comb through his hair and beard, and out the lice marched again – there was an endless supply, or so it seemed – were they multiplying on the spot?
We let out the brass bung and filled up three times in all. I was glancing at the clock endlessly, and hoping against hope no emergency would come in, or the Beetle would take it upon herself to do a spot check, which she could do sometimes, to catch us all out. If she did it tonight I’d be for the high jump, all right. I cursed and cussed Dr Thomas under my breath, as he was snoring away downstairs, not having to do any of this gruesome task. Eventually Mr Lousy was pink and clean, fresh as a new-born babe (well, almost). The bathroom looked like a tidal wave had hit it. We managed to get him into fresh, clean blue and white stripy pyjamas and even combed his straggly grey hair and beard. I was tempted to cut it, but there was no time left, so it would have to wait. Carrie mopped up the floor and I got the red blankets and bundled them into the bathroom laundry basket, which was a giant rectangular thing on wheels. The laundry was taken out every day, so I knew it would be removed in the morning by the early shift staff. We wheeled our newly scrubbed tramp out into the middle of the ward, which had an empty emergency bed in the middle, at the end of the patients’ meal table. It was there precisely so patients could be brought in in the night without d
isturbing everyone. We could hear the snorings, mutterings and fartings of the men, always a nightly cacophony, and still no one woke up. Carrie turned down the sheets, and we got hold of my man – we did a ‘one, two, three, hup’ and he was soon tucked in, looking totally angelic. Jesus, I was exhausted. I took his pulse: it was better, now regular and strong.
Then together Carrie and I went back to the bathroom, which still looked like a bombsite. So the next job was to scrub and disinfect every single inch as we had to remove all evidence of our nocturnal ‘crime’. There were pools of water and dead lice everywhere. ‘You owe me one, Mary,’ said Carrie, good-naturedly. ‘I owe you, big time,’ I said, somewhat relieved. ‘The Merrydown’s on me tonight.’ By eight in the morning everything was tickety-boo and Mr Lousy was sleeping peacefully, still looking quite beatific in bed. We’d done it; so I hugged Carrie with thanks, clocked off, went back and collapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep of the dead.
Suddenly I was woken up by a loud rapping on the door. What on earth? The door opened and in came the maid, looking worried. ‘Mary, wake up. It’s the telephone.’ ‘Uh?’ was all I could manage. The maid shook my shoulders and pulled down my sheets. ‘Mary, it’s Sister, on the phone in the hall for you. Mary, wake up. You need to come to the phone. Now!’ ‘Urgh, wassatime?’ I had absolutely no idea where I was, what day it was, what was going on. ‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning – come now.’ I was supposed to sleep all day, so I was totally disorientated being pulled out of my deep sleep. Reluctantly, I pulled on my pink candlewick dressing-gown and slipped on my pink slippers and went down to the office. I was deep asleep, but was soon very awake, once the voice of an irate Day Sister hit my ear. ‘Come straight back on the ward, Nurse Powell, this instant. I want to speak to you immediately.’ ‘Yes, Sister,’ was all I could croak out. Oh Lord, I was in for it. I had to go and put all my uniform rigmarole on, yet again, including struggling with my damned hat, and I’d only had a couple of hours of sleep. I felt like death warmed up (rather like my tramp).
When I got to the men’s medical ward Day Sister’s face looked like absolute thunder. I wondered if Carrie or even Dr Thomas had told as they were the only two who knew what had gone on in the night, under cover of darkness. I was carpeted in Sister’s small side office, and stood there, hands behind my back, like a naughty schoolgirl, swaying with exhaustion. I could see she was furious as her eyes glinted behind her glasses as she spoke: ‘You are responsible for having an emergency bed in the middle of the ward, are you not?’ I nodded, helpless under her rapier-like gaze and interrogation. ‘Where’s the blanket he came in?’ I couldn’t see where this was going, exactly, so I said meekly, ‘In the linen basket, Sister.’ She stood up and marched off in the direction of the door, throwing it open quite dramatically, and telling me to jump to it. I followed her meekly outside. When we got to the linen basket she lifted up the lid and I thought, ‘God, I’m in for it now.’ ‘Look in there, Nurse Powell.’ I peered in and, to my utter horror, the two red blankets were still crawling, and now everything else in this huge linen basket was alive, too. ‘You do realise we could all get lice now, don’t you, Nurse Powell? And we could all get nasty diseases from these little beasts.’ As it sank in, I wanted to sink through the floor, too. ‘What on earth were you thinking?’ I stood there, mortified. ‘How could you contaminate all this linen?’ Thing was, I hadn’t thought. I imagined the linen basket would be whisked away, first thing, but obviously someone had looked in and brought it to Sister’s attention. It was the fatal flaw in an otherwise brilliant plan. I had nothing to say, but the tears started, as always. Sister was beyond irate. ‘What are we going to do with you, Nurse Powell?’
I opened my mouth to tell her about Dr Thomas and the position he’d put me in. What was I supposed to do? I started with ‘But, Sister …’ and Sister silenced me. ‘No “ifs” or “buts”, Nurse Powell. You know full well that you could have got someone down to Casualty and you could have washed the patient down there. You needed to do that so you didn’t transmit his disease to the rest of the hospital.’ ‘But Dr Thomas said …’ But Sister stopped me again. She did not want to hear that Dr Thomas had told me to set up the emergency bed in the ward; she didn’t want to hear any excuses and certainly no nurse was allowed to say anything against a doctor. They were gods. They were to be obeyed. Their word was not to be questioned. And we lesser mortals had to sacrifice ourselves on the altar of duty. I’d been here before, many times. You would have thought I’d learned my lesson by now. ‘Procedures are procedures, and that is that, nurse, else where would we all be?’ ‘Yes, Sister,’ I replied, groaning through gritted teeth.
Next morning I was back on Matron’s carpet at ten in the morning. I felt there should be a little spot on the carpet that said MP on it, like those Hollywood stars’ pavement handprints you saw in the magazines. I seemed to be standing there so often, I ought to offer to get a new carpet, in case I wore this one out. My mother had taught me how, luckily. Meanwhile, Matron was snipping at me, in her posh, tight tones, as ever: ‘… and it shouldn’t have happened, nurse, and you need to be more observant in future.’ I felt her eyes on me for a moment, as I was examining the colours of the rag-rug: red, green, blue, orange and yellow. ‘I don’t want to see you in my office again, Nurse Powell,’ she said ominously. ‘It seems to be a little too frequent for my liking.’ I left the room sobbing, and made a beeline for the Nurses’ Home. It was hopeless; my mother was right. I would never be any good; I was a useless, careless, sinful girl. I’d soon be back on that plane, with my mother gloating, and sent off to Dublin to be trained by the nuns. I’d never make it here. As I was blubbing down the corridor I bumped into Sister Tutor. ‘What’s the matter, Nurse Powell?’ Out it all came: Dr Thomas’s attitude, the almost-dead tramp, the lice, the scrubbing, the linen basket, the carpeting. I was a mess and I didn’t think I could make it as a nurse. I said, ‘What can I do, Sister Tutor? I want to do a good job, so why am I always in trouble?’ Sister Tutor really surprised me then, when she said, very kindly, ‘Listen, Mary, when you’ve passed your exams – which I am sure you will – you’ll make a wonderful nurse. You have a good heart. You just have to learn from your mistakes, and you have to keep going.’ I looked up at her and couldn’t believe my ears. I blew my nose loudly, and she laughed. ‘I know you’ll get there in the end, of course you will.’ I could have hugged her and jumped for joy, but I knew better than to try.
7
Public Enema Number One
One of the most amazing things about Putney Hospital at this time was that, although men and women were segregated, patients with all sorts of conditions were lumped in all together, so you’d find failed abortions next to appendectomies, or cataracts next to mastectomies in women’s medical; or in men’s medical, diabetics (who were incurable then) next to men who were constipated, or those with ‘growths’ of all sorts, such as in the lungs or the prostate (what we’d now call cancer), who were beside stomach ulcers (which were mainly treated by drips full of milk). The surgical wards would have broken femurs next to car crash victims or brain surgery. Then there was the children’s ward, which was boys and girls, and geriatric, which again was segregated into gender. The main wards were often a real nursing challenge as there were mixtures of patients with a variety of needs, who were in for something that was relatively trivial, like tonsils, next to people who had cancer and other incurable diseases. Another thing that was typical of the time was that patients stayed in bed for a long time in hospital and were ‘confined’ to bed, so they had to use bedpans for wee and poo. Today, we are used to people going in and out overnight for operations, and being up straight afterwards (due to what we know now about thrombosis risks), but back then people stayed weeks, even months, in bed, until they either healed or died. So we nurses got to know the patients over a long period, and even became friends with some of them. No wonder some of the nurses and patients fell in love, as there was time for a real relationship to devel
op over a few weeks, or even months.
So the idea of bed rest was also very important, and with few miracle drugs, patients had to be nursed, often to the end of their lives, through painful illnesses, with often very limited pain relief administered rigidly. There was no TV, and visiting times were limited to a strict hour a day. Relatives could not stay over then, so even when someone was dying they had to go home. Some wards were beginning to have radio, but the boredom was tangible. There were no mobile phones, obviously, although there might be a pay phone, but it was on a trolley and difficult to use, there was no privacy and you had to have the right change to make it work. More often than not people had no one to talk to for hours at a time. So we nurses would talk to them, find out about them, listen to them, especially if there were no relatives or friends around at all. Patients might have a newspaper, magazine or book to read, or some board games, like draughts or dominoes, but if they were very sick they weren’t really up to concentrating. I found it very hard to see people suffer, and I always did my best to relieve them with a joke or a kind word; it didn’t take a minute to be cheerful, but it could often change their day and made me feel better about the job of dealing with the incurables, especially. Befriending a patient was part of the job, and they often got spiritual help from the father or vicar who would come round the ward, and talk to them. The Salvation Army would even come into the ward and play to people, especially if they were near the end: it was a way of sending them off, or helping them to rally or cheering them on, if they had turned a corner medically. Basically, the hospital was a small community, a microcosm of the world outside, and in those days we were supposed to provide all sorts of help, emotional and spiritual, as well as purely physical. That was what nursing was all about (and what I still think it should be about): care.