All such dislocation of the Service, necessary and useful for emergencies and holidays, should, nevertheless, be made to take place as seldom as may be.
No Nurse, during her suspension, should be allowed to enter any ward of the hospital.
Any Nurse asking or accepting a present, whether in money or in kind, from any patient, or friend of any patient, whether during his illness or after his death, recovery, or departure, must be at once suspended from duty, her pay immediately cease, and the Superintendent-General be apprised of it, who, if satisfied of the truth of the charge, should immediately dismiss her.
Two hours daily for exercise or recreation should be allotted to the Nurses, during which two hours they are to be considered relieved of the responsibility of their wards. But I would not be too absolute in requiring them to go out: sometimes to lie down or sit still for an hour or two will do more good than a walk. Give them two hours for optional exercise. Head-Nurses cannot have more of fixed leisure. They must get time for private occupation as they can: very often not at all; and no Nurse fit for her place will, of course, in emergent states of her ward, leave it. Also the Matron must not worry herself or them, if an anxious Nurse sits up part of a night or a whole night with bad cases.
To a certain degree the Matron will find it better to allow a little liberty and choice, in the matter of times and hours, (always excepting after proper hours, i. e., after dark) to the Nurses, who are Head-Nurses, than to attempt making them mere machines. An uniform system, as far as possible, and a little range to each, will answer best. But do not hurry the uniform system too much; take time: this is very important.
The Nurse should, every morning, at an hour to be fixed by the Chaplain or Matron, read aloud in the ward, the Confession, the Lord’s Prayer, the Collect for the Week, the Collect for Grace, and the Benediction; and every evening, at an hour to be fixed by the Chaplain or Matron, she should read aloud in the ward the Confession, the Lord’s Prayer, the Thanksgiving, the Collect for Aid, and the Benediction.[12] This would Christianize things, instead of heathenizing them; and I believe not a soldier would dream that his conscience was injured by it. The Roman Catholics and Presbyterians might be allowed quite to refrain, if they chose, which they would not. It would be necessary for the Chaplain-General to approve of and direct in this, and best to wait a year or two before beginning it.
The prayers should be very short, the whole not more than five or six minutes each time, and the Nurse should read them, the men joining at the proper times.
In some Civil Hospitals the prayers are far too long and are gabbled over by some patient, perhaps the worst character and the best scholar in the ward, or are stumbled through by some little boy, upon whom the others cast the distasteful office, with circumstances of irreverence, partly unintentional and partly shocking. At St. Bartholomew’s Hospital the very short morning and the very short evening prayers are printed clearly on each side of a card, which is affixed to each bed; and each morning and evening the Head-Nurse reads them aloud: the difference is very great.
10. Have the Diets sent hot and ready-divided from the Kitchen.