Photo by D. Scott
THE HOSPICE, HIGH STREET, EDINBURGH
As soon as the admission book showed a steady intake of patients, Dr. Inglis applied for and secured recognition as a lecturer for the Central Midwifery Board, in order to be in a position to admit resident pupils (nurses and students) to The Hospice for practical instruction in midwifery. She at the same time applied to the University of Edinburgh for recognition as an extramural lecturer on gynæcology. Recognition was granted, and for some years she lectured, using The Hospice or the Edinburgh Hospital for Women and Children at Bruntsfield Place for her practical instruction.
A woman doctor writes: "In thus starting a maternity hospital in the heart of this poor district she showed the understanding born of her long experience in the High Street and her great sympathy for all women in their hour of need. Single-handed she developed a maternity indoor and district service, training her nurses herself in anticipation of the extension of the Midwives Act to Scotland. Never too tired to turn out at night as well as by day, cheerfully taking on the necessary lecturing, she always worked to lay such a foundation that a properly equipped maternity hospital would be the natural outcome."
Though hampered by lack of money and suitable assistance, she was never daunted, and in a characteristic way insisted that all necessary medical requirements should be met, whatever the expense. She worked at The Hospice with devotion. Though cherishing always her aim of an institution which, while serving the poor, should provide a training for women doctors, she threw herself heart and soul into the work because she loved it for its own sake, and she loved her poor patients.
In 1913 Dr. Inglis went to America, and her letters were full of her plans for further development on her return. At Muskegon, Michigan, she found a small memorial hospital, of which she wrote enthusiastically as the exact thing she wanted for midwifery in Edinburgh.
On returning from America, for a time she was far from well, and one of her colleagues, in September, 1913, urged her to forgo her hard work at The Hospice, begging her to take things more easily.
Her reply, in a moment of curious concentration and earnestness, was characteristic: "Give me one more year; I know there is a future there, and someone will be found to take it on." A year later, when it seemed inevitable that it must come to an end with her departure for Serbia, those interested in The Hospice passed through deep waters in saving it, but the unanswerable argument against closing its doors was always that big circle of patients, often pleading her name, flocking up its stair, certain of help.
"Three things foreseen by Dr. Inglis have happened since her departure: