San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-08-16
THE HOSPITAL GIRL.
AN INTERESTING INSIGHT INTO HER
RESPONSIBLE DUTIES.

Alone All Night In . Gloomy Ward with
q Score or More of Sick and Dying
Patients-The Clang Of the Ambulance
Gong.
At the end of three months the novice Is
put Oh night duty in either the medical or
surgical ward, and then it is that all the
heroism and courage of her nature is called
into action. One nurse IS put in charge OF
two wards, each containing, when full,
twenty patients. The lights are turned down
until dusky silence hovers over the white
cots. In the surgical ward the doctor leaves
his orders, often supplemented by the infor-
nation that patient in one ward has just
passed through a severe operation, there is
danger of hemorrhage, and the nurse must
not leave her alone. Perhaps in the other
ward patient is very low. The doctor says
she must be watched constantly, for she is
liable to die at any moment. Then he goes
away, and the young girl fits about in the
gloom from cot to cot, administering medi-
cines and treatment, hurryisg from the side
of one sufferer to the other, half fearful to
gaze into the quiet face lest it be already
still in death; afraid the dangerously i'll pa
tient in one ward will die while she goes to
see the dying sufferer in the other.
Suddenly the dread clang that all nurses
fear with a nameless horror strikes upon her
ear through the dreadful stiffness. 1t draws
nearer and nearer, and stops at the doorway.
Every nurse knows the portent of the ambu-
lance bell Every nurse fears the arrival of
some new patient if there is an empty cot in
her ward then comes the sound of slow,
measured footsteps drawing nearer and
nearer, and she flies to make ready the empty
cot, only hoping no one will die while she is
engaged with the new conner The men
come in with the stretcher and deposit its
burden on the bed. The nurse washes the
blood from the wounds, if there be any;
determines the extent of the injury as
much as possible, and, if very serious,
calls the doctor. If only cut needing few
stitches and careful bandaging, the nurse per-
forms the operation herself; battles her pa
tent and makes her comfortable, and then
| hurries back, perhaps to witness for the first
time the last struggle of a dying person.
When the last shuddering sigh falls from
the stiffening lips, the brave girl alone in the
| gloomy ward closes the eyes, folds the life
less hands, and taking down the card bear
aurries down through the long dim corridors
20 tell the orderly to prepare for the burial.
If the patient be heavy, the nurse calls the
helper, woman from prison, one of which
| is kept to do the cleaning in each ward, and
| together they "do up the corpse" as it is
called in the hospital If, on the other hand,
the dead woman is slender, the nurse battles
and shrouds her alone, all of which must be
accomplished within al hour after her death.
| Then the men enter with the box and she is
! borne out, the nurse throws the bedding out
Oh the fire escape and returns to her duties.
| Many girl has met her first experience of
this kind alone in the dim wards of the hos
pital late at night, for deaths are likely to
occur between the hours of II and a. m,
when vitality is at low ebb.
A person who has watched at night by the
bedside of one who is very i'll can have a
faint notion of the responsibility of person
| in charge of forty patients in various degrees
| Of danger. A young woman who had known
nothing of sickness and little of work re-
| ates one nights experience when an elderly
woman was apparently dying in great dis
5ress and required constant attention. In
the cot adjoining lay another patient, who,
though not in imminent danger, was suffer-
| ing terribly, and who had, as the nurse ex.
pressed it, more things the matter with her
than any one ever had before or since" The
nurse had pulled the screens up around the
lying woman's bed and was administering
such alternating remedies as lay in her power,
when she suddenly heard great disturbance
IN the adjoining ward, and Fastening there
found an immense fat woman, crazy with
fever, promenading up and down the ward,
making havoc with everything movable
Coaxing, commanding and assisting her. she
was finally settled in bed again, but as the
Nurse bent over her dying patient the same
connection was heard in the other ward
again, and she went back, and after coaxing
he woman into her cot, she tied her feet to
| jhe iron bars at the foot of the bed Once
more she hurried to the other ward only to
ind one patient writhing in pain, the other
| With clenched hands tossing in the death
struggle. As the quivering features Gained
| 20 peacefulneSs and the groans were hushed
10 silence, she heard the noise of groans and
screams in the other ward, and found the
at woman on the floor, with her feet still
led TO the bed. By the help of all the force
n the ward she was lifted to her place,
trapped down to the bed, and in the gray
light of the dawn the dead woman was pre-
pared for her burial, while the living moaned