Letter to the General Court of Contributors of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, containing observations on the minutes of evidence, and on the report of the committee ... / by a contributor.

Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the General Court of Contributors of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, containing observations on the minutes of evidence, and on the report of the committee ... / by a contributor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    not to say wilful, negligence with regard to these points, are of a kind that it would now be much more agreeable to forget, than to remem- ber or to enumerate. The opinion so strongly expressed by the Managers (Art. 11) with regard to the impos- sibility of procuring better Nurses than are at present employed in the Infirmary, is so con- trary to that which I have formed after a very long and attentive observation, that I was at first disposed to imagine, that, by some mis- take or other, the word “ better^ had got into the place which should have been occupied by the epithet worse; for I will venture to say, that the opinion, as it now stands, is contrary to ex- perience and common sense. The situation of Nurses in the Infirmary ought to be, in several respects, better than that of ordinary servants. They should be supplied with several comforts which ordinary servants cannot be said to re- quire. The admission into the permanent ser- vice of the Infirmary should not be through the Matron alone; and some provision, not depend- ing altogether on the favour of that person, should be made for the-Nurses, when, from age.