Other and cheaper crematories for the use of the smaller hospitals are in the market, they being efficient, so far as the capacity goes, and the price being within the reach of practically every small hospital. An illustration of one of the best of these cheaper crematories, made by the Bramhall-Deane Co., is here shown.
Certainly every institution with new buildings or additions in course of erection that has not yet made provision for the sanitary disposal of garbage and refuse, should keep this matter in view as one of the improvements to be arranged for as speedily as possible.
There is no royal road to safety in a hospital. There are hidden dangers on every side. “Eternal vigilance is the price of safety.” The most expensive and wisely constructed building and the best modern equipment will not long remain in a sanitary condition unless watchful care is exercised, and intelligence and energy applied to the eradication of dirt, and conditions that favor the multiplication of the enemies to life and health that are ever present.
In the regular daily cleaning of a hospital no “royal road” has been discovered. There are on the market a great variety of washing powders, scouring soaps and such things, but nothing has been discovered that quite takes the place of human labor.
CHAPTER XII.
The Help Question
When one considers the numbers of boxes of good brass pens, the quarts of ink, and the reams of paper (to say nothing of such cheap things as brains and time and vitality) that have been consumed within the last score of years, in bringing forward “solutions of the servant problem;” when one sees that self-same problem, still to the front, dangling in the air as it were, refusing to settle itself or be settled, it surely ought to be sufficient to deter all but the most audacious from touching it. Instead of being solved, it is growing larger and more difficult to deal with. It is not much wonder that men suggest that women demonstrate their ability to manage their own domestic domain, and get the servant question settled, before seeking to get into politics and take a hand in the government of the state and nation. However, a prominent member of the board of a certain hospital remarked optimistically not long ago, that “since the Irish land question seemed to be getting worked out,” she had some hope that somewhere, around some unexpected corner, some bright man or woman would discover a means of really solving “the servant problem.” But up to the present moment that discovery has not been made, and let it be understood here and now, that a solution of that problem is not attempted here. Neither is any special claim made for originality, for the subject has been so thoroughly gone over that it seems there is nothing new to be said. But difficult as the subject may be to deal with, either theoretically or practically, it cannot well be ignored in dealing with hospital housekeeping, since it consumes no small portion of the time and energy of the housekeeper, and is of vital importance to the institution.
Numbers of Servants
Perhaps the best place to attack the subject would be to calculate how many servants are necessary to do the work in a certain hospital of a certain capacity. But at the outset one is baffled at that point because institutions differ so very greatly. Some buildings are much more difficult to keep clean, more difficult to get work done in because of mistakes in construction that entail more labor. Servants also differ in their ability, standards of work vary, and the organization of the working force varies. Some institutions require nurses to do all the sweeping of wards and private rooms, others have it all done by maids. Some hospitals require nurses to wash ward dishes. In others nurses do none of that work. In a place where soft coal is used more help will be required to maintain the same standard of cleanliness throughout the building, than if that difficulty had not to be contended with. Some institutions have no laundry work done on the premises, others have it all done at home. Some hospitals bake all their own bread, others bake none. All these and many other things have to be considered in reckoning the number of servants required. Each institution must be largely a law unto itself in this matter.