The Bishop of Pretoria came to lunch with us the other day, and was very nice in visiting the men.
We are expecting more men any day now, and on the 25th of this month we are to be officially "opened" (on Princess Christian's birthday, I believe); a crowd of people are expected from Durban and from Pietermaritzburg.
I could not help thinking the other day, when all these thirty men were dumped in upon us in a couple of hours, of the old days in London when we thought we had had a very heavy day if six or eight patients were admitted to our ward in a day; and there we had everything ready to hand, and several well-drilled nurses to help. Here I can see it will take a little time before the sisters will realise that it is useless to try to have things done just the same as we can at home, and for them to distinguish between the essentials of good nursing, which we must have, and the superfluous finish, which we must do without.
XXX
Pinetown, Natal,
June 1900.
We have had a stiff time of work since I wrote last. I think I told you that several orderlies were ill, when our first cases came in, with dengue fever, and soon the medical officers began knocking up with it—first one and then another; next, the sisters took it; no one has been very ill, but the fever was high for several days, and, of course, they were weak and seedy after it went down; so we have not had a full staff at work for some time, and with lots of bad cases in the wards it has made things very difficult.
Several odd cases have been straying in, and on the 17th we took in five officers, and then on the 19th of last month we admitted eight officers and thirty men from Modder Spruit, most of them very ill, and one poor fellow so bad with hæmorrhage (enteric) that he died the same night.
We had to open a second officers' ward, and the sister put in charge was very hopeless (at having so many bad cases, and such inefficient help); so I had to spend a good deal of time helping her look after the worst cases, and then the next morning after they arrived I found she had dengue fever and could not come on duty; so I had to take charge of her ward for a few days, and do the best I could in looking after the patients with the help of the orderlies, amidst constant interruptions and appeals for help or advice from different parts of the camp.