(5.) That it is most important, apart from these reasons, to train and accustom these Nurses to serve efficiently large numbers of patients, so as to make them useful in war-service, where every woman who can be spared is better away; and where a small efficient staff would, please God, do excellent service.
(6.) That it is not in human nature, taking its average, supposing the Regulations lay down that the proportion is not to exceed 25, for many Nurses not to murmur at having more; whereas they ought from the first to understand, that the service is a very laborious one, and that none but women able and willing to undergo and render laborious service, ought to enter it, or be suffered to remain in it.
(7.) Care must be taken therefore that in fixing this minimum, no use may be made of it dangerous to the service, either in the Hospital work itself, or in provoking adverse criticisms upon these Regulations in quite different places. Twenty-five cases are not generally enough.
19. Precautions in sending Nurses abroad.
19. It would be expedient to take the advice of an able and honest man of business as to whether the Superintendent-General should, on engaging a Matron or Nurse, have her signature to a bond or not. On the one hand, we know what bonds are to loose consciences, and if the promulgation of the Regulations give undoubted power to the Superintendent-General and to her Matrons on foreign stations, I should prefer having no bond. But this is for a man of business to answer. It is important to remember that the power of instant dismissal for misconduct, and of sending the Nurse home must be retained, which renders the service different from ordinary female service. A discharged governess or servant, if she insisted on remaining at her own expense at the foreign station, could not be sent home forcibly by her late mistress; now it is essential that an offending Nurse be forthwith passed on board the first returning ship. Also performances similar to those of one or two of the women in the War-Hospitals who, on hearing of good situations, misbehaved in order to be discharged, ought to be effectually prevented. A lawyer must advise, first, if it can be; secondly, how it can be done. The Superintendent-General, on sending abroad Nurses, ought to have some security either that they remain there and do their duty, or that they be sent home for her judgment if they fail in duty. To have them either going abroad as Nurses by way of securing a free passage, and then looking out for lucrative situations, or accepting the offers which might, and, occasionally, undoubtedly would, be made to them, would be most injurious to the Service. Can it be prevented by any stronger measure than the instant forfeiture of all claim to the eventual pension? If so, it should. Could this power be extended to the washerwomen who would probably be sent with the Nurses ordered to War or out-of-the-way foreign stations? Perhaps it will simplify things not to include them in the Regulations.
The persons provided by the Officer, whoever he may be, to attend to the hospital linen under the orders of the Matron, will be pretty sure to give the Matron trouble. But it is much better to begin very modestly, and to avoid alarming the Attendance Department; and so to be content with the people provided in the linen store, and not at all to invade the regions of the kitchen. By degrees, please God the work prospers, it may be extended. I fear a laundry of men, except in war-service, will be a costly and inefficient concern. Yet a laundry of women, exempt from the control of the Matron, would be probably the worse evil of the two. And it is both right and expedient to move very slowly, and to begin with the nursing service alone. Ultimately, if we invade both laundry and kitchen, I should still wish, in both, to have as few women as possible. The fewer women are about an Army Hospital the better.