10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY,
SHE is not a grouser; not a bitter woman. Is smart, alert, modern, she loves her job, and carries on in spite of its disadvantages. Sho knows its uncertain conditions ! Good here, bad there-no enforceable standards-and recruits. We go on-she says--because sick folk
hence the dearth of
can't wait...
WHO'D be a NURSE?
A
T first I used to hide when Sister came into my ward. They had warned me she was 3
holy terror-though later I found her quite decent. You see, I was only 17 when I started at H.
Matron told me
to come along and see how I did.
We had to pay a premium. though this is not usual; and also mother had to supply my outat; and my first pay was £10 a year.
I have been qualified just three years: so that was happening seven years ago, anyway. I was there just a year, so keen that nothing mattered.
suven
Then I went to H.... Ocncral and, of course, my year's training did not count, and I started all over again.
OW. Do nurse minds discipline-but it's the
doton. Mine was not one of the big modernised hospitals, or one of the progressive Municipal places, like L.C.C. hospitals, And there is no accepted standard: or conditions that can be enforced,
For instance, a friend of mine. trained at the same time at "The Royal Free" and found restrictions re- laxed and discipline kept.
Irritations reduced to a minimum. For instance, the rule that no Pro. must ever address a word to a aludent. or doctor cases up when all students and doctors are women.
They could talk, tlwy played tennis togellar, and learned a lot about both sides of their work. Then, when she finished training, she went to a hos. pital at a fashionable resort.
Frightfully strict nutron, heaps of restrictions, and all the nurses out to outwit the rules.
That's the worst of it. You never Know what you will And.
My training and first work Inter was pretty average, I suppose. But never really found out whether I was employed to do odd jobs at a rotten solary and pick up what I could about the sick, or being given a rotten salary because I was to be taught a fine jobs!
However, conditions affected me most at first. Accommodation-alr. Food Good quality ruined by appal- ling treatment.
Half an hour for our midday ment, sometimes haived_by_waiting for near raw meal moddeh vegetables, roĽKY nudding lenfors kept quiet while seniors talked, too-like school, only zoro sol)—and this perhaps after a Lecture on the "Causes of Indipes Lion" or "Modern Dietetica "I
The modern hospitals have dict clans to walch the menus, and it's better when the sister-housekeeper is as independeat as possible, too, ·
Hours worried me most. Do you realise that a 55 or 60 hour
---------To-day's Thought-
He is my friend that succours me, not he that pilfelli me. ---THOMAS FULLER.
1
as told to
Joan Woollcombe
week or more is still worked? That the total span of a girl's dutles (between coming-on and going- off) may be 13 hours on day duty and 12 hours on 'night? That my lectures, anyway, had to come mostly out of Time Off (two hours), and had to be altended in full uniform (more time, for changing).
After duly, at @ p.m., we could only go out with (very) special permission. Of course, prostresulvė hospitals, under the L.C.C., and Bart's, Guy's and the others. give their Pros complete free- dom between 0 and 10p.m.
But imagine having all the ghits switched all anyhow nt 10.301 We did. Nobody resented "carly to bed "-we had to get sleep; but that lights off forcibly got me down
Then, we had nowhere to are vialtors, and no telephone of easy nects, and, as a general rule, never knew our free times till the actual etoy.
It was hard to be completely cut off from normal life. Try it and are.
I
THINK perhaps the first Limo I really said:
"Whe'd be a Nume... was after my arst apell of real night duty. Perhaps it will tell you more about the whole thing If I just describe that as it bap- pens, to-day-cspecially in under- staffed places.
Well, listen: it's the end of the night, from 5.30 to 7, that gives you a close-up of being a Nurse." and "debunks" the romance of it -though, mind you, nothing takes away the fact it is the finest job on earth for the right woman. »
Well, in my case, I had a ward of 18 patient; between 5.45 (which wAA the earlicat I might wake them) and 7-when I had to hand over to Day Nurse. I and to wash and tidy them and so on, and cook and serve their breakfasts.
This is a 1st of the things I had to do to. and for. 18 semi-helpless cases: wake, wash them, and take tempera, -turca; do a round of bed-pan; do their hair and their nails (and this "means "all" these things "thoroughly), change linen, and do any treatments due and cook and serve 18 mtals, all of which may be diferent.
Porridge, tea, bread and butter and eggs and bacon 'or eggs-you know the sort of thing. Mine was a medi- cal ward, so the diet was fully fall.
This hour and a quarter was my nightmare: sometimes (though I'm off night duty) (t comes back to me la sleep: because you were really "for it " if you were a moment late, whatever the cause, in my hospital.
I used to plan and re-plan waya of getting throught and patients, when they could, helped.
But, even with a junior to cut bread- and-butter-ll was a crazy rate; and
MY ANNUAL REST
1 went to bed at
little after LIKE to think of my holiday as
Eo twelve after a good game of bridge. my annual rest. I always away with the firm intention of hav- I slept the sleep of the almost dead,
ing a lazy time, with no strenuous excrciso and as much rest as possi-
Next morning my intentions were good as ever. I did. stay in bed till eight o'clock, but I did not resist ble. I have just come back from my the temptation to swim. Neither dild annual rest, and on thinking it over I resist other towerations, and we I begin to wonder.
went for a long walk before lunch. In the afternoon I played tennis again. In the evening 1 climbed a hill-ne, a mountain!
The first morning I intended get ting up late, but the smell of sea air and the first rays of sunshine
The days which followed were entering my room awoke me. It was taken up by swimming, walking, Irresistible. I got up and dressed. running, diving, climbing, driving. A short walk before breakfast, in riding, playing tansol, the cool of the morning, can do no various card games--but the latter
I had my walk harm, I thought.
After breakfast I found a comfort- able chair and decided to bask in the
sun. I sat for about ten minute -when someone suggested a swim. We went to the beach am stayed there till lunch timo. I swam, and raced, and dived, and plunged, and return ́ed extirusted to the house.
"Never mind," I thought, "Il rest in the afternoon. It's heller to have some exercise during the cooler part of the day."
and
only after dark, My muscles be- came sora and they becomé nuppie gnin. My skin was burned and got well again and became tanned. And
every night I went to bed exhausted.
I must have walked on average of 15 miles a day, I swam for at Icast two hours. I ran on the bench for another hour. I played tennis for two hours, and I drove a car for two
three hours. I climbed several hills-no, mountains-and I played more.bridge than during the rest of the year. I rode horses until I-or part of me-could sinnd it no longer. I went for evening strolls which became long marches. I ate By the time lunch was over I felt like a navvy and never wasted beller and wont for a motor run in minute. I did read one chapter of the afternoon. When we got back a book. And I think I did alt down we had just time for another dip to for at least half-an-hour-once. freshen us up for dinner. After dia-
ner I got a book and decided to spend ' a quiet, evening.
P
And now I am back from my an- nual rest. Since. I feel like a boxer I fighthig telm I think I shall I managed to rest for half an hour, change the name. I am back from and then tennis was suggested. · I my annual training, played tennis.....
Ulter Watson.
-to wake a case who had only just dropped off to his first bit of sleep... well, I did not enjoy thunt, cliber,
What about pay and prospects? Prospects of ployment, Ane! There's a corelty
cm-
•of trained Slate Registered Nurses.
Pay? Well-the College of Nursing. which always battling for better con- eltions, has e suggested minimum scale; And even they only recommend
£205 to £80 for staff nurses.
Privale nurses get between three and four guineas a week and their full kerp,
of course.
As an example, my friend who has Just qualified and is Staff Nurse doing **Casualty" at a smaller London hospital, gets £4 îs, 11d, a month less 78. 2d, for superannuation scheme, and will get a pension of four-sixths of whatever salary she's getting when she retires,
Her hours are long, ninghour day 54-hour week over, a spread and fortnight; but she's dend keen on her work, has a good matron, and does not Brouse.
"It's a question of enshi. It we could afford more staff it would ease things. Meanylille-we must do the best we call. "Patients don't stop being 11 whulle we argue."
What she did not say--but probably thought like I downs that the short- agé of recruits will go on, get worse,
unless girls can be sure of reasonable minimum conditions.
They want giris now, with mairie. lation siandard or something, or they want them to pass a test examination before hospitals take them on.
You don't get that type of gizi to take. Ela a year. fair to middling con- ditions, a Bi-hour week. If she doesn't know even then-whether she's s badly paid junior school fag of a stu- dent taking bad pay because of the fine chances of learning a job with a future.
No, I have not said anything about nursing being a vocation." It must be, or you wouldn't get women sticking It in the fair to middling hospitals. "Or imodern-minded hospital cxperts- L.C.C.. Barts, Middlesex and the rest -fighting for better conditions and better nurses)
JOHN A. SMITH
Asks
How Do You Use Wireless?
THERE are approximately 30,000,- national lite, but there is no doubt T
000 radio isteners in this coun- that something is happening to the try. During an average-year-the-way In which people regard and use B.B.C. receives from them about broadcast programmes. The radio 150,000-letters,-expressing-approval is peculiar among all forms of enter- or disapproval of various program- talment or art in that It has to mes. Many of them are concerned highbrow public.
If you are a theatrical producer with Esteners fare in general:-"I consider you give too much time to you may decide to cater for one see- jazz"
cr "Can't we have more sports tion of people by putting on Cheithov commenturies?" Most valuable to or Cord Odets; or for another by directors of programmes are staging a domestic comedy or so- those letters which criticise in an phisticated revue; or for a third by intelligent manner particular broad- taking the local "Empire" and pro- casts, but all letters, even those of ducing its traditional fare. Each appreciation, help to part of the public, according to its unqualified
tastes, con findi enough material in show the
the public B.B.C. what
the theatre, in books, music, or wants
This year, however, there has been flims, to fill its leisure hours without serious fall in the number of letters its having to encroach on a sphere receival. It is estimated that by in which it is really little interested, next December the total will reach merely for "something to do."
the
a
It visualises a
The radio, as we know it lo-day, no more than 50.000, or only one is different. The B.B.C. tries, very third of the usual number. As a result the B.B.C. has to face not only conscientiously, to cater for every the task of giving the public what body all the time. it wants (which is quite easy, it kind of average man to whom every item It broadcasts is acceptable. known), but also that of discovering Only, in practice, real people soon what the public wants. A a way diverge from the
average, either out the B.B.C, has constituted 1,500 "downward" or "upward" and the of its stuff a representative public,
fying are the programmes. and these people regularly receive greater the divergence the less satis-
What After 15 Years?
*
blank forms on which to record their opinions of various programme items.
There are two obvious drawbacks Some months ago a correspondent to this scheme. First, it is doubtful to a BB,C, journal made a survey of whether even the 1,500 selected mem- his acquaintances in: zeurch of the bera are truly representative of the highbrow listener. He found none. huge nation-wide audlenca belind He found many people who were dis- the "mike." Second, an employee, of criminate in the plays and Aims Uicy the BB.C. may not be too willing to saw and the books they rend, but critiche, programmes when, at the none who approached the indio Bamo time, he feels he is indirectly critically or gave it any serious in- criticiting his employers. No doubt, tellectual consideration. it is easy to exaggerate the Import- ance of this factor.
| Indiference to Programmes
The conclusion seems to be that, radio programmės ar most appre cluted as an accompanying noise to other activities. Probably not one person, in a hundred· Ilstens without But far more interesting than any at the same time reading, talking, or alternative the B.B.C may adopt, is doing something that really is con- the mere fact of the drop in "listener-sidered more important than laten- It seems to indicate a Ing. Outstanding items, of course, response," growing indifference to the nature of get particular attention. But that the broadcast programme). During radio is taken mostly as a bock- Coronation week a great deal of ground is proved by the periodical money and pains was spent on the complaints from listeners and radio production
of "Merrie England, writers that there are too many in- broadcast, twice and listened to, it tervals in the programmes. These was estimated, by twenty million people are aggrieved that, maybe ot people. The B.B.C. Intended to ten separate times during a day's gulde its future polley in regard to broadcasts, they have to wall three. such programmes by the tone of the minutes before the next item com- huge mail that was expected to fol- mencesl low the broadcasts.
To me the fall in listener-response "Merrio
England" brought in 44 suggests that people are not very letters. Similarly, the Peinging Interested in what they hear, though mice" broadcast, on which the B.B.C. they do want to hear something all naked listeners to comment, pro- the time. We have had well over duced only six replies. During the a decade of regular broadcarts, Re- 1030-7 winter Scottish stallons re- moto ethereal spaces are stili tinging ceived no more than 50 letters a week with the music of hundreds of dance. from their regional public, and many bands, full orchestras, trios, quartets, of these were not comments on pro- sextels, and septets; the words of Frammes but queries on one malter thousands of earnest talkers are still ar nnother.
travelling through space in wave It is ridiculous to suggest that the form, side by side with the songs of radia is not an important part of our crooners, romantle sopranos, and full. **
OCTOBER 25, 1937.
EUROPEAN PARADOX
AN
tour
N' extensive
amenu the people of Ave countries in Europe, Just completed, has made clear to me the monstrous paradox that exists in Europe to-day."
While those who administer and govern the great dictatorships aro constantly occupied in diplomatic manoeuvres and finesse for places In world politics, their people continue their daily pursuits filtle Intercaled in the diplomatic game, and desir- ing only to be left alone in peace.
Crossing, the battlefields of Flan- ders, which only twenty years ago were reduced to a wilderness of
RAJDU
churned mud and tree stumps, but P & O-BRITISH INDIA-APCAR AND
which are now covered with luxu- riant growth and crops, I stopped to speak to the people about war and politics. But I soon found that their interests lay in peaceful pursuits, and that what interest they had in the doings of diplomats and statesmen was merely incidental to the main business of living.
Strangely enough, I found the same, in Germany and Italy. Right down the Ruine gorge from Cologne to Coblenz, which only recently at Its re-occupation witnessed the mur- ching of soldiers and milliary dis- play, the people are peace-loving and desire only, to be left alone to their work, their crops, their dances, and their songs.
Yet, next to the Brenner pass, the Rhine valley must be one of the most strongly fortified Frontiers in Europe, There are evidences of strong garri- sons all the way along the river and, of course, one is always conscious of the existence of the French Maginot line only a few kilometres to the south,
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The Two Italics
The paradox of peace and power is clearly seen wherever the Brenner pass is crossed into Italy. There, the social conditions of the people are largely as they were when I saw them 15 years ago Just before the March on Rome. But, unke Ger- many, Italy is really two countries- the new and the old.
The new is the military machine, the vast schemes of road, rail, and hydro-electric construction, and huge imposing ndministrative ofles
in the austere architectural style at the great centres, where armies of om- cials bustle about, papers rustle, and -rubber stamps thump incessantly; the old is the Italian peasantry and the _village_populations.
Fascist Italy differs from the new Germany
д , in curious respect. Whereas the
change in Germany Is psychological and touches the very souls of the people, that of Italy is one of mathematical and mechanical precision affecting the instruments of government and defence. This is gradually being extended from the top downwards and there is evidence
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bodied contraltos, as well as those of adenoldal "blues" singers, barl- tones, and thundering basses. All this vast output of mory or less genuins ari hoa Down past our ears, that in time the organisation will be a source of weakness. Every but what has it left behind?.
much wiser s
The technique of listening la a dif- ficult one. It requires great concen- Strange Contrast trailon, far more than does, say, reading or watching a play, Conse- quently, it cannot be continued for long at a time. Again, when a thing becomes very easily obtainable and very cheap It soors ceases to be vivid ly appreciated.
་
have reached even the lowest social agency of propaganda and channel of Not very much. It has taught us
is controlled by the grades, Unlike the typical German, Information a few facts. We may recognise the
the Italian does not take well to this Stato' so that it can be used at any names of more operafle singers than kind of life. Nevertheless, it is hav-time to work up a mass hysteria for we know in pro-E.B.C. days, and wo
ing is affect and great changes are political purposes to unite the two rriny know more of what is happen-being worked out.
elements the government and the ing outside our immediate environ- Like those of Germany and Aus-, people, ment. But I doubt whether we are tria, the Italian people are closely It is doubtful if these devices would result of 15 years wedded to the peace ideal, but, lika proven successful in the case of radlo or more fluent in self-expres- the rest, they appear awed by the Italy, where there is still wide free- sion or more often lilled out of our sheer Immensity and thoroughness of dom of expression, as they would in everyday Belves,"
the administrative machine.,
Germany, but an English resident in Stresu told me that they were used with great effect during the period Thus you get the monstrous para of the sanctions, when national dex of Europo to-day. Dictators and solidarity was of primary Import- general staffs controlling powerfulance.
One thing I found common to all military and naval machines super- imposed upon peace-loving people countries, oven among certain sec- who have littlo knowledge about tions In France, in the fear of Bol- Maybe the next dovelopment in
what is going on and appear to care shevism. The mention of the word to them is like a red rag to a bull. radio will be a reduction in pro ess
They all look upon it as we would gramme time with the exercise of
But it is clear that the sentiments the plague. The dictators know, this greater discrimination in the terris authoritarian States are, so to speak, every hoarding hing something about and desires of the rank and file of and exploit it to the full, for almost Broadcast. I know a move to such an end would meet wll a storm "like the flowers that bloom in the Bolshevism. of prolest. But only a similar plan spring, they have nothing to do with What precisely is included in the would do away with, the essential the enge,"
term Bolshevism, is a question idiocy of 14 hours daily of music,
This is the eternal contradiction of which I could not get a really con- together like the ingredients of an ciple, the clash of official and un- that It plays a large part in their variety, talks, and plays, all huddled power politics and the leader prin- elusive answer, but there is no doubi Irish-lew, much of it of no real clictal notions of what a State stands politics and la ever present in their
for. But though this paradox exists thoughts ar war is absent. John A. Smith, It can never, In present conditions,
W. Ninian Biowart
valué."
to
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