by Mary Hazard
There was something else that happened that challenged my thinking in the second year of nursing. A rumour starting going around about one particular night sister, a very unfriendly and rather brisk woman in her forties who we called ‘the Grim’. She always seemed very snappy and had no time for idiots, especially me. She looked awful a lot of the time, thin and pale, quite yellow-looking, and most of us nurses hated her. If the Grim was on nights, I knew better than to get in her way, as she would always be snapping at me, ‘Stop dawdling, Powell. Get on with it,’ or ‘Haven’t you finished folding that linen yet?’ She was the kind of woman who was never satisfied, and along with the Beetle she was one of the night sisters we were always trying to dodge. She was notorious for making you do a job again and again and again, and I sometimes felt she was a right sadist, never satisfied, almost inhuman, like a machine. Rumour had it that she had had her heart broken during the Second World War, and that her beloved had not returned to her. Her life and all her future plans ruined, plus all prospects of motherhood and family life gone, she had thrown herself full tilt into her nursing career, but we sensed that, underneath it all, she was terribly hurt, bitter and sad. She was never kind to the nurses, and quite harsh with the patients, too, and sometimes I really wondered why she was a nurse at all.
Anyway, one night a huge scandal broke in the kitchen while I was on nights having dinner with my good friend and confidante Jenny, who was always the fount of all knowledge and gossip. Jenny, who was a year ahead of me, had now passed her finals, thankfully, and was in her probationary year. I always looked up to Jenny, as she was braver and more feisty than I was, and being a year ahead she could warn me, and teach me, in equal measure. Like a veritable bloodhound, Jenny had her nose to the ground, as always, and as we finished our spotted dick and custard at one in the morning she whispered to me she had the most amazing story to tell me. I had noticed the Grim had been absent the past couple of night duties, and I just assumed that she was ill. ‘You’ll never believe it, Mary,’ Jenny hissed, her eyes like saucers. ‘The Grim’s been suspended!’ ‘What?’ I leaned across our dirty bowls. ‘Sshhh! Mary, shush.’ So I leaned nearer. ‘Come on, spill, Jenny – what on earth’s going on?’
It seemed that the Grim had got overly fond of helping herself to the contents of the locked drug cupboard while on nights (only the sisters and staffs had keys). When drugs were dished out to patients every four hours we usually took them round each bed on a special trolley, which had a key which opened it up, like a little bureau. The drugs were loaded up from the charts, and given to each patient to take. Back then things were more gung-ho than they are now, and the drugs would be dished out in a little bowl or popped in a glass, and then left by the bedside. It seems that the Grim was working all sorts of shifts, back to back, working day and night, in the NHS and local private hospitals, and that she had been keeping herself going on amphetamines. She was popping Dexedrines like sweets, and had apparently been caught trying to sell them to other nurses and even doctors. Apparently, a trap had been set for her and she had fallen for it. Dexedrine, or ‘Dex’ as it was known back then, was very popular, and apparently used a lot by people on shift and night duties. It seems that military personnel and police would take them, as well as medical staff – it was illegal, of course, but it was well known as a way of keeping awake on long night duties. People also took pethidine, which was a kind of morphine, and was very addictive. So the Grim was a drug addict. Apparently, too, the Beetle had helped set the trap. Sweet Jesus, what next? I was astounded. When I looked back, I realised that she always seemed so nervy, so full of irritation and snappiness, that it all began to make sense. She also always looked terrible, like she could do with sleeping for a week and eating a good, wholesome dinner or two. I also heard that she had been doing shifts in the local Lyons Corner House as well, doing washing up, which many of us did, to make ends meet. I didn’t know why she needed so much money, but maybe she was overworking to blot out her bereavement – who knew? She must have been caught in a terrible cycle of addiction which had started around the time of her boyfriend’s death. We never saw her again, thank goodness, so never really got to the bottom of it all. She just disappeared under a cloud of shame. I think the hospital quietly dismissed her, and, like many things, it was never spoken of again and was brushed under Matron’s grey carpet. What did surprise me, though, was to find out how many of my colleagues had been popping pills to keep awake – including the doctors – and I found myself realising, yet again, what a naïve and trusting person I was. It really was time for me to wise up.
There were a couple of things that could have put me off nursing for good: one was all the frothy blood that was on the TB ward; the other was vomit, of which there was also copious amounts. I wasn’t so bad with poo or wee, but I always hated vomit, and it was one of those things that could make me retch myself. Anyway, one night I was on the men’s ward, and one of the patients woke up and called out, ‘Nurse, nurse, come quick. I feel sick.’ He was an old working-class boy in his sixties, a Mr Peabody, and so off I went and fetched a white kidney-shaped bowl from the sluice and pulled the curtains round, as he threw up everywhere. It took a while to clean him up, which involved changing his sheets and pyjamas in the middle of the night. However, he was soon settled down again, so I took his vomit bowl to the sluice and threw the contents down the drain. I scrubbed and washed myself up and was just going down the ward, back to my desk with its little light, when I heard ‘Nurse’ again, coming from Mr Peabody’s bed. ‘Oh, Lord,’ I thought, ‘not again.’ So I went over to Mr Peabody’s bed, where he was now sitting up looking quite agitated. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’ I asked, thinking the poor man must be about the throw up again and I’d have to rush off to get another bowl. ‘It’s me teef, nurse,’ mumbled Mr Peabody through his gums. ‘Where’s me teef, luv?’ ‘What do you mean?’ I was getting irritated now, but I had a horrible feeling I knew what he was getting at. ‘I’d ’em in,’ he said, simply, ‘when I wus sick.’ ‘Oh sweet Jesus, no,’ I thought. ‘They’re probably down the bloody sluice.’ I didn’t let on, but I tried to buy some time. ‘Wait a minute. I’ll go and have a look for you,’ I said, innocently. So back I trotted to the sluice, and I had to literally put my hand down the yukky drain. Although we had rubber gloves on, everything went right over the top of my cuffs as my arms dug deep into the sluice to fish through the vomit, the poo and whatever else was in there. It was utterly and completely revolting. Anyway, it was eventually worth it, as there was Mr Peabody’s teeth, his pink and white NHS gnashers, rolling around in the bottom, on the verge of disappearing down the drain. I managed to rescue them, and I washed them off, scrubbed and disinfected them, and scrubbed my hands, as well. Then I popped his dentures into a beaker with a sterilising tablet and took them back to his bed. Mr Peabody was pleased as Punch. ‘Oh, you are kind, luv,’ he said, ever so grateful, through his gums. ‘Fank you, nurse.’ He had no idea what I had had to trail my fingers through to get them, but he didn’t know any better, and he was happy as a little lamb as a consequence, so I was very pleased to help.
Although I was usually kind to the patients, there were times when my own patience was running short. With men like Mr Peabody I always felt I had a bit more slack, as they were nice old blokes, who had very little in life, were stoical and seldom complained about anything. They ate the cold, tasteless hospital food, they accepted the hours of boredom and the poor pain relief, and were always up for a joke or two. Like Mr Poysner and his Sunday whelks, I never minded getting them a paper, or helping them with their baccy, or making them comfortable in some way, as hospital was pretty boring, and the days were long and fairly lonely for them. However, there were times when I had some old dears that really drove me mad. I also think that as I got older and more experienced I felt I could stand my ground a little better, especially with so-called ‘difficult’ patients. There was one old girl, a Mrs Mason, on the women’s medical ward who used to irritate me; it
wasn’t her fault, she was about 80 and she was always demanding something, calling out, trying to get out of bed at night, and generally being a nuisance. Looking back, she was probably heading for dementia, but we didn’t know much about that then; she was just ‘old’ and ‘senile’. I think I was more tolerant of this when I first started, but by the end of my second year I was beginning to see I had to have firmer boundaries with some patients – otherwise I’d be run ragged all night. This one particular night, when I was on duty, Mrs Mason knocked her water glass and jug off her bedside table in the middle of the night. Sometimes the old dears had nightmares, sometimes they had bladder infections or the heebie-jeebies about something or other, and I would go and sort them out. They would be moaning and groaning in their sleep, or shouting out like banshees. It wasn’t their fault, but it meant I had to get up from the desk and go and wake them up, and then settle them down again. Anyway, this night, in the middle of winter, I was cold and I had been sitting at the desk with my cloak on. We often did this if we were freezing and struggling to stay awake, especially in the early hours after our dinner break (which was always the worst time). I had a big black torch, which I would use to shine on the patient to see what they needed and to help them out. Otherwise the ward was in complete darkness, as we knew the patients needed it to be pretty dark to get to sleep. When I got to Mrs Mason’s bedside she was pulling everything off her side cupboard, and taking off her clothes, throwing things about and trying to make a big old mess. I could see that she was going to wake everyone up, so I snapped at her, ‘Now stop it. Stop pulling everything around, and settle back down.’ I was quite sharp with her, uncharacteristically so for me, but I felt there would be pandemonium on the ward if I didn’t watch it. Anyway, she said, ‘Oh, dear!’ and sounded really shocked, and stopped what she was doing immediately. I then helped her on with her nightie, and settled her back down, tucked her in and tidied her up. I said, ‘Now go to sleep,’ in quite brusque tones. ‘Sweet Jesus, I think I’m turning into the Beetle,’ I thought briefly, but I’d really had enough and I was tired.
Anyway, all went quiet after that, and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, goody, she’s gone back to sleep. Thank Goodness for that. Now we’ll get some peace.’ Next morning, at five, we always had to wake everyone up for their early morning temperature and pulse readings. It was always an irony that we had to disturb them only to have to get them back to sleep again. Anyway, as I got to Mrs Mason’s bedside and woke her up, she suddenly clung on to me with her bony hand. ‘Oh, nurse,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a terrible night.’ She proceeded to tell me then that she’d had a dreadful nightmare, and that a big black bat had come to her bedside with a big light, and had threatened her. ‘I think it was that bleedin’ bitch of a sister,’ she said. ‘You know, that little rotten one that comes round at night.’ Well, I knew who she must be thinking of, the Beetle, whom all of us thought was a ‘bloody bitch’ (I’d done a pretty good impression, obviously). I wanted to put her straight, but I found myself unable to say anything, as I thought I might end up in fits of giggles and give the game away. ‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you should complain?’ ‘Oh, no,’ Mrs Mason said, really scared now. ‘If I complain, she’ll only come and get me again. I’m so scared of her, nurse.’ ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, all innocence. ‘Well, would you like me to tell her off for you?’ ‘Oh, would you, nurse?’ she said, her eyes widening and beginning to tear up. Well, I did feel terrible then, as I was leading her a merry dance. ‘I’m scared she’ll come back and do it again,’ she said. I had clearly shaken her to her roots, and I felt a bit bad for her then. ‘No, don’t you worry,’ I said innocently, patting her hand. ‘I’m sure she won’t come round and scare you again. But you have to behave yourself, you know, and be a good girl, get some sleep at night and not throw your things about.’ ‘Oh, yes, nurse,’ Mrs Mason said meekly, clearly having learned her lesson. ‘I’ll do anything not to have that big black bat scaring me again.’ I have to say we did laugh about this over our fags and booze debrief later, although I did feel sorry for the old dear, as I had clearly given her a real fright. She was as good as gold afterwards, and I began to realise that nurses could exert quite a lot of power on the wards, if they really wanted to. Luckily I didn’t let it go to my head, especially as I didn’t want to end up like a bloody Beetle or a Grim.
At other times we had good fun with the patients. When it was the Grand National we would create a sweepstake and patients would put a shilling on to win and would be arguing the odds over a copy of Sporting Life. It was heart-warming, and I would see all these old geezers with heart conditions or terminal cancer having a laugh and debating about who was going to win or get placed. We were happy to see them feeling happy, as it made the job easier if patients were not feeling miserable and down. And at Christmas we really went to town. We nurses would spend ages decorating the wards: we’d make paper chains and hang them up, bring in a little Christmas tree and decorate it, and string up loads of lovely Christmas decorations. Then we would rehearse and not only perform a Christmas pantomime, like Cinderella, but also sing carols, and we’d go round each ward giving an individual performance. It was an amazing production always, and we did it with gusto. It reminded me of putting on our plays and operettas back home, so I didn’t mind singing, dancing, acting and generally making a fool of myself. I could also help make the costumes, too. A lot of us were on duty over Christmas, and also had no homes to go to ourselves, so the kitchen would produce a proper Christmas lunch on Christmas Day, and a surgeon would always be delighted to come in specially to carve the turkey, with great precision, for each ward. They’d come in and we’d all stand round watching them sharpen their knives to do the honours for their patients, as the hospital was a kind of family, too. We all had crackers and hats, and we’d sing carols with everyone. The Salvation Army (we called it the ‘Sally Army’) would often come round the wards and play to the patients on their big brass instruments, and there would be a festive, if restrained, atmosphere. Those patients who were well enough would be sent home for the holiday, but there was always a hard core of patients left, including children, who were very sick or even dying. One of the doctors would dress up as Father Christmas and dish out presents from a big mail sack which had been donated and wrapped by Friends of the Hospital. It is not an exaggeration to say that it felt like a proper community, a big, happy family even, and we got a lot of satisfaction from making the patients feel that bit better. Making this kind of effort was part of the job and we felt it was important to make some kind of home-from-home for people who had no other choice than be in hospital over the festive season. It was fairly miserable being in hospital, otherwise. So this seemed especially important because visiting hours were only for an hour a day, and were very strict, so the children, in particular, felt very lonely, especially at Christmas or Easter. It does sound a bit goody-goody now, but I think I learned a big lesson at Putney Hospital about the importance of emotional happiness and contact with patients, and giving regular TLC, as being an essential part of helping patients to get well physically, or even to face the worst outcome, the end of their lives.
14
Private Rooms and Community Life
It’s very important to remember that the NHS was only four years old in England when I started my training, so it was a relatively fledgling national institution, still finding its way. Putney Hospital had been built with private money in 1908, and although it had been taken over by the NHS in 1948, private money was still needed to fund all sorts of things. All NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom had boards of governors and patrons, who constantly raised money for new equipment, or specialist instruments, or to build new hospital wings or rebuild old wards. So since its inception the public health life of the hospital had had to live alongside private health (and wealth). I didn’t pay much attention to all of this, but I knew there were a few private patients tucked away in private rooms. I knew that in Ireland we had had to pay for our medicine, and ofte
n people went without health care simply because they were poor. I also knew this was changing rapidly now the NHS was in place, and thank goodness for that. We had been lucky with my sisters and their TB treatment as my family was relatively well off and my father was well connected and used his good friends and contacts to our advantage. So when I was at Putney Hospital I gradually became aware that not only did most wards have one or two side rooms that were reserved for private patients, who paid, but there was also an actual private wing tucked away in the hospital with nine paying beds. The same nurses tended to both the public and private patients, and they largely ate the same food as the NHS patients, and had largely the same standard of accommodation. The only real difference was that the patients could come straight into hospital either by being referred by their GP directly, or by going straight to a consultant, who would put them at the top of their list. As ever in life, money talked.
When I was a junior nurse (that meant during my first and second years) I remember being sent into the private wing to clean. That was the only level at which I was allowed to enter this hallowed territory. I remembered being sent in with a cloth and a canister of Vim, which was a tough scouring powder, and I was told to make everything shine. I had to polish the sinks, the brass taps and bung holes, the plug chains, everything within sight, until they shone like new. This was all done with my bare hands, so the skin was almost peeling off after I’d scoured every sink, toilet, bath and nook and cranny. I was told to keep my head down, and not to speak to anyone and not be nosy (almost impossible for me, of course). On Sundays, when the cleaner was off duty (or when she was sick), I also had to mop the floor with those big, wide floor mops, which was exhausting, if good muscle-training. Thus, as trainee nurses we were not unleashed on the private patients to nurse them until our second year. I don’t think it was felt we were good enough, or even sophisticated or savvy enough, to know how to treat them. After all, they were obviously a better class of person than we lesser beings, as they had money; and, of course, there were often famous people or well-known public figures on the private wards, and it was probably felt that a more mature, more experienced nurse would be the most appropriate kind of woman to unleash on these noble creatures.