by Jane Grant
She came into Martha while I was writing a letter on hospital notepaper. I hastily stuffed it under the cushion of my chair.
‘Get me some linen, gal,’ she said abruptly.
I went to our store cupboard and looked for some; in my nervousness dropping a roll of strapping and a splint on the floor. I found a screwed-up piece of linen and returned with it.
‘Now some cotton, gal,’ said Daisy impatiently.
I could only produce black cotton, at which Daisy frowned. She started to make a spill, winding the cotton round the linen several times and telling me to tie it. All this time my attention had been concentrated on the corner of my notepaper that was just sticking out from under the cushion. In a complete state of nervousness I grabbed hold of the cotton and tried to tie it, my hands were shaking so much that I bungled the task.
Daisy, with an impatient rap on my knuckles, took the spill from me and tied the cotton herself.
She walked down the ward, and I followed. As we reached the door she said: ‘Don’t use so much hospital paper, gal. It’s expensive stuff.’
Daisy had been Night Superintendent at the hospital for twenty-six years. So many rumours had been spread from time to time about her retirement, that now she was really going no one could believe it.
On her last night a crowd of students stood outside her office chanting rhythmically: ‘We want Daisy! We want Daisy!’
Daisy appeared at the door and was immediately seized and whisked into a wheeled chair. Several pairs of hands tucked blankets round her, and she was then pushed merrily all round the park, while the students sang ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow!’
When the door of the Medical Block was reached, Daisy was hoisted on to the shoulders of two of the rugger team, who carried her up the first flight of stairs, bouncing her, while she clutched on to their collars and hair. They reached the top landing and turned around, so that Daisy looked down on the mass of students and nurses who crowded on the stairs and in the entrance below.
Three rousing cheers were called, and nearly raised the roof. Then one of the braver students stood forward and faced Daisy. Mimicking her perfectly, he announced: ‘I don’t know what all this noise is about. I’ll report yer all to the Superintendent. And, gals, don’t forget to cut yer gauze squares four inches square exactly.’
A round of hearty applause and laughter followed this statement.
Daisy sat erect on the shoulders of the two men. She was halfway between tears and laughter. Then she suddenly scrambled down in an undignified way.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply.
There was a silence. With a sudden return to authority she spoke up. ‘Now, that’s quite enough. We shall wake all the patients.’
She turned away from us, climbed the next flight of stairs without looking round, and went, stiff and straight-backed, through the door into Samuel for her first night round.
Chapter Twenty-five
Daisy was succeeded as Night Superintendent by a Sister who had been at the hospital some ten years. She was a tall angular woman with a stiff walk and a hearing aid. Her name was Fisher, but she was commonly known as the Colonel, because rumour had it that she had been in the Army during the war, and her constant admonition to each senior Night Nurse was: ‘Organization! We must have organization! Now I want you to parade, Nurse! Up and down! Up and down! Plan, parade, and propel! That is the way to run a ward.’
With this she would give her roll-on a vigorous tug downwards, and would stride up between the bed as if inspecting the guard.
A few nights after Sister Fisher had taken over from Daisy, I was moved to a Woman’s Surgical Ward called Esther. My Junior was a pale, colourless little creature called Anne Blake, who was terrified of everyone.
One night when I came on duty I found on the following day’s operating list there was a gastrectomy. Before this operation it is necessary to pass a tube into the stomach to clear it, in order to reduce the risk of post-operative vomiting.
The Junior came to me when I was making up temperature charts, and stood in front of me with her hands behind her back.
‘I wonder,’ she bleated, ‘if I might ‒ if you wouldn’t mind ‒ possibly. If I could pass that tube on Rogers. For Schedule.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll ask the Staff Nurse when she does her round.’
The presence of the Staff Nurse is necessary, in case the tube is passed into the lungs by mistake.
Sister Fisher, however, came up shortly afterwards to take the night report, so I asked her.
‘Yes, Nurse,’ she said in her abrupt way. ‘I’ll send Nurse up at six to do it.’
She pulled down her two-way stretch and marched off.
Exactly at six o’clock the wretched Junior was waiting white-faced and trembling by Mrs. Rogers, who was sitting up in bed scowling. Staff Nurse did not arrive till half past six, and during that half-hour Blake had not moved an inch, and the patients had had to get their own breakfasts.
The two disappeared behind the screens. A quarter of an hour later, Staff Nurse’s red face poked out from between them.
‘Nurse ‒ come and show Nurse how you pass a Ryle’s tube.’
I got up importantly and went behind the screen. Mrs. Rogers was sitting up; tears, due to the irritation of the tube in her nose, were streaming from her eyes. In front of her she held a vomit bowl, and she looked suspiciously from Blake to the Staff Nurse, and then to me.
‘All right, sweetie,’ I said, in what I imagined was a soothing tone. ‘Just swallow when I tell you to.’
I put the tip of the tube into her nostril and began to pass it down. It disappeared with beautiful rapidity, and I stood back with a sigh of relief. Then Mrs. Rogers looked at me reproachfully, opened her mouth wide and pointed inside it. There, lying coiled on her tongue, was the tube.
Staff Nurse gave a heavy sigh. ‘Let me try,’ she said in a long-suffering tone.
I gave her the tube, feeling small and embarrassed.
She put it in the other nostril and tried to pass it down. Mrs. Rogers went quite rigid and puce in the face.
‘Now try and relax, dear!’ we all screamed at her.
But it was no good. The tube just reappeared.
‘I’ll have to get Fisher up,’ said the Staff Nurse despairingly.
‘Better clean that tray up,’ I said to the Junior, while I hurriedly tidied the bed.
We soon heard heavy footsteps marching rhythmically down the ward, and a commanding voice announcing to Staff Nurse: ‘You must get them to relax, you know! It’s no good at all when they are all tensed up. You can’t get co-operation!’
As she reached the screen she stopped and I heard her say firmly: ‘Now I have never’ ‒ I visualized the two-way stretch being tugged down ‒ ‘I have never ‒ had any difficulty ‒ whatsoever. And I anticipate none here.’
She marched through the screens. ‘Tube, Nurse!’
‘Now, my dear,’ she said briskly to Mrs. Rogers, ‘we’ve just got to be very business-like about this, haven’t we?’ She lubricated the tube and put it into the nostril, then passed it swiftly from hand to hand, and turning round to her gaping audience, she repeated: ‘Now you see, I anticipate no difficulty ‒ whatsoever.’
So saying, she gave the tube a final push. To our utter horror we saw it disappear completely down Mrs. Rogers’ nostril.
There was an appalled silence. The Colonel looked astonished and offended. ‘Yes, well ‒’ she said at last. ‘Nurse ‒ you won’t forget to mention to Day Sister there is a tube in the stomach. Will you?’
So saying, she brushed the screen aside and hurried off down the ward.
That evening when I came on duty Day Sister gave me a small parcel wrapped in brown paper, and asked me with a slight smirk to give it to Sister Fisher. I saw that on the outside was written ‘To Sister Fisher, with my kind regards,’ and the signature of the Consultant Surgeon, ‘S. A. Cunningham.’
When the Colonel arrived on the ward I
handed her the parcel. ‘Day Sister asked me to give you this, Sister.’
She was obviously as mystified as I was. She slowly undid the wrappings. There, lying neatly coiled in a kidney dish, was a stomach tube.
‘Yes, well ‒ I ‒’ She coughed. ‘I suppose this belongs to the ward, Nurse, doesn’t it?’
She pulled down her two-way stretch and said with dignity, ‘I’ll take Report now, Nurse.’
One night when we came on duty the ward was in complete chaos. We were taking in casualties that week, we had had a long operating list that day; one patient was in theatres, and another was on the point of being admitted.
The houseman decided to give this new patient intravenous fluid. He set the infusion up while I assisted him, and in the middle of all this the Registrar arrived with a band of students and wanted to take her case history and hold a class on her. The class being over, I was dashing madly round trying to catch up with my work, when one of the students came up to me.
‘I say, Nurse!’ he began.
‘Yes,’ I said sharply. I looked at him coldly, hoping he wasn’t going to ask me anything or keep me long talking. He was an ordinary looking youth with untidy hair, and was in his fifth year.
He said, smiling blandly: ‘I’ve got an awful thirst on me, Nurse.’
This I felt was too much. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t time to get you anything.’ I added, feeling I had been too abrupt: ‘You can go and get anything you want from the kitchen.’
‘Oh, that’s quite all right,’ he said happily. He looked from my tired, cross face to the houseman. ‘Now what we all need,’ he said, ‘is a nice cup of tea.’
‘What I need,’ said the houseman shortly, ‘is a double scotch.’
‘Tea’s much better for you,’ said the youth, not at all crushed. ‘Now you sit here, sit down right here. And I’ll fix it all up for you.’
He disappeared into the sluice, and reappeared immediately, saying with one finger up: ‘Ha-ha! Not quite the right place, is it?’
I pointed to the kitchen, then went on discussing what time the new patient was to go to theatres. On reaching the kitchen door, the student brushed the Junior aside, saying: ‘Of course I can make a cup of tea! You just show me where the things are. I’m really terribly domesticated!’
Through the maze of preparing the patient for theatres, arguing about her diagnosis, getting the houseman to check the necessary drugs, as well as bossing the Junior around, I had completely forgotten about the student in the kitchen. Suddenly the door flung open as if it had been kicked by an outstretched foot, it banged loudly on the wall, causing a heavy sigh from the nearest patient.
Skilfully bearing four brimming cups, the student walked to the table and set them down.
‘Here ‒ this’ll make you feel better!’ he said proudly.
I took the proffered cup. The tea was quite black and the teaspoon stood up in it, anchored by the unmelted sugar.
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said with a sinking heart. I took a sip, set down the cup and said hurriedly: ‘I’d better just go and take a look at that patient.’
‘Oh, she’ll be all right,’ said the houseman. ‘Don’t be so keen. Sit down and drink your tea.’
I threw him an appealing look, but he was swallowing his avidly. Then I looked at the happy face of the student, and I had to drink it.
This particular houseman was called Michael Turner, but he was known throughout the hospital, much to his disgust, as Lana. He was very unpopular on the ward and amongst the nurses because of his disagreeable and sarcastic manner.
When I came on the ward one night I found Mrs. Braun crying. I asked her what was the matter, and she answered, sobbing. ‘Dr. Turner says it is cancer I haf. I must haf my breast off.’
Mrs. Braun was a German Jewess of fifty. Her husband had been killed by the Nazis, and she had escaped with her son, a child of ten. Arriving in England, not knowing a word of English, she had nowhere to go and knew nobody. Being an alien, she could not do a job worthy of her intelligence, and she had been forced to become a charwoman.
When Turner came in to do his night round I asked him if he would write Mrs. Braun up for a strong night sedative, as she was very upset and could not sleep.
‘What’s she upset about?’ he asked coldly.
‘I gather you told her she’s got to have her breast off.’
‘I’m surprised she wasn’t prepared for that.’
I felt extremely annoyed with him. ‘Even if she was,’ I said, ‘there are ways of telling people that don’t come as quite such a shock. She was upset because of the way you broke the news to her.’
‘What d’you mean? I just told her the truth.’
‘You could have sympathized with her a bit. She’s had a hell of a life, you know.’
‘If I had to sympathize with everyone I’d never get my work done,’ he said crossly.
There was a silence. ‘I’m sure you don’t mean it,’ I went on. ‘But you do give the impression you couldn’t care less. It’s just your manner, I’m sure.’
He said nothing. I went on boldly: ‘She’s still awake. Why not go and talk to her now?’
He grunted, and to exert his authority he did not get up immediately, but sat at the table looking at one or two more charts. Then he said in a voice of extreme casualness: ‘I think I’ll just take a look at Mrs. Braun.’
‘Oh, good,’ I said. ‘She’ll be most grateful, I’m sure.’
He muttered something in a shamefaced way, and slouched off.
After about five minutes I took them both some tea, and there was Turner sitting on the bed, smoking his pipe and listening, while Mrs. Braun poured out her life history in broken English.
It was some time before he came back to the table; then he said in a stiff tone, ‘Well, I think we’d better give Mrs. Braun some nembutal. D’you want me to check it?’
He checked the drug and when I took it to her she was sitting up smiling.
‘Oh, the Doctor says he thinks it will be oll right. He said they haf a case of it last week and she iss fine. He says an aunt of his haf it, and she haf come back just from a valking tour in Scotland. He says she valk him off his feet ven she valks!’
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said.
‘He says also,’ she murmured as she settled down, ‘he says that he vill speak to the Almoner about my vork. He says I speak English so good, perhaps I get a job as an Interpreter!’
I went back to the table. Turner was sitting there, carefully studying some reports.
‘She seems happier now,’ I said.
He merely said in an angry voice: ‘I wish you’d chart your drugs properly. This penicillin wasn’t charted this evening.’
I told him mildly it was the day staff’s pigeon, and he snapped: ‘Well, remind them about it then!’ and he got up abruptly and left.
The next night he was his usual disagreeable self, and when he had said some venomous things about one of the staff nurses, I ventured to defend her.
‘Well, I think she’s considered quite good. She probably wouldn’t please you, though.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’ he snapped.
‘Well, you’ve got rather a high standard. You’re not easily pleased.’
He glanced at me sideways. ‘What you really mean,’ he said, ‘is that I’m a miserable old sod.’
Chapter Twenty-six
As one grows more senior, one’s technique for dealing with Sisters becomes more expert. Every other statement I made was a lie, and most of the others weren’t strictly true either.
The Colonel had a habit of ordering what I considered were totally unnecessary treatments. When she asked me if these had been carried out I attained the art of saying, ‘Yes, Sister!’ in a half-surprised, half-injured tone. This took some weeks of careful training to instil into the Junior, but gradually she became expert as well.
When I gave Sister Report one evening, I mentioned that an old lady called Mrs. Denham, who had come in to
have a hernia repair, suffered from watery eyes.
‘Now, Nurse,’ said Sister, ‘you have been bathing them regularly, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, yes, Sister,’ I said blandly.
Some days later Sister was doing her morning round, and the screens were drawn round Mrs. Denham’s bed.
‘What’s the matter with Mrs. Denham?’ asked Sister.
I carelessly replied with the first thing that came into my head, ‘Oh, she’s just going to have her eyes bathed.’
‘Oh, yes, yes!’ said Sister, very pleased. ‘And your Junior Nurse is going to do it?’
Blake, who was standing by, on this took her cue and hurried off to the treatment room, being prudent enough to collect a textbook from Sister’s desk on the way. Sister Fisher took longer than usual on her morning round, and she was still on the ward when Blake reappeared, pushing a trolley loaded with mackintoshes, jugs of water, sterile sets, dirty dressing bowls, several bottles of eye drops, two dressing drums, and balanced rather uneasily in the middle of the trolley, on top of one of the sets, an undine, which is a small glass flask with a spout used for irrigating the eyes.
The Colonel was in a very good humour: ‘Yes, I see you’re determined not to have to go and fetch anything, Nurse. Ha-ha!’ She turned to me. ‘Does Mrs. Denham mind having this treatment, Nurse? Sometimes old people object that it is uncomfortable.’
‘Oh no, Sister,’ I said. ‘She likes it. She says it makes her eyes feel more comfortable.’
The Colonel had been marching down the ward, apparently on her way out. But by the screens she stopped suddenly. ‘I think I’ll just watch Nurse’s technique,’ she said archly.
There was a frozen silence. ‘Well ‒ er. Yes, Sister,’ I said in a small voice.