Among her other enterprises was the founding of the Muir Hall of Residence for Women Students at the University. Many came up from the country, and, like herself in former days in Glasgow, had to find suitable, and in many cases uncomfortable, lodgings.
Principal Muir’s old Indian friendship with Mr. Inglis had been most helpful in former years, and now Lady Muir and other friends of the women students started a Residence in George Square for them, and Miss Robertson was appointed its first warden. Dr. Inglis was Hon. Secretary to the Muir Hall till she died, and from its start was a moving spirit in all that stood for the comfort of the students. She attended them when they were ill, and was always ready to help them in their difficulties with her keen, understanding advice. The child of her love, amid all other works, was her Maternity Hospice. Of this work Miss Mair, who was indeed ‘a nursing mother’ to so many of the undertakings of women in the healing profession, writes of Dr. Inglis’ feeling with perfect understanding:—
‘To Dr. Inglis’ clear vision, even in her early years of student life, there shone through the mists of opposition and misunderstandings a future scene in which a welcome recognition would be made of women’s services for humanity, and with a strong, glad heart she joined with other pioneers in treading “the stony way” that leads to most reforms. Once landed on the firm rock of professional recognition, Dr. Inglis set about the philanthropic task of bringing succour and helpful advice to mothers and young babies and expectant mothers in the crowded homes in and about the High Street. There, with the help of a few friends, she founded the useful little Hospice that we trust now to see so developed and extended by an appreciative public, that it will merit the honoured name “The Dr. Elsie Inglis Memorial Hospice.”
‘This little Hospice lay very near the heart of its founder—she loved it—and with her always sensitive realisation of the needs of the future, she was convinced that this was a bit of work on the right lines for recognition in years to come. Some of us can recall the kindling eye, the inspiring tones, that gave animation to her whole being when talking of her loved Hospice. She saw in it a possible future that might effect much, not only for its patients, but for generations of medical women.’
With Dr. Elsie one idea always started another, and ‘a felt want’ in any department of life always meant an instantly conceived scheme of supplying the need. Those who ‘came after’ sometimes felt a breathless wonder how ways and means could be found to establish and settle the new idea which had been evolved from the fertile brain. The Hospice grew out of the establishment of a nursing home for working women, where they could be cared for near their own homes. Through the kindness of Dr. Barbour, a house was secured at a nominal rent in George Square, and opened in 1901. That sphere of usefulness could be extended if a maternity home could be started in a poorer district. Thus the Hospice in the High Street was opened in 1904. Dr. Inglis devoted herself to the work. An operating theatre and eight beds were provided. The midwifery department grew so rapidly that after a few years the Hospice became a centre, one of five in Scotland, for training nurses for the C.M.B. examination.
Dr. Inglis looked forward to a greater future for it in infant welfare work, and she always justified the device of the site as being close to where the people lived, and in air to which they were accustomed. Trained district nurses visited the people in their own homes, and in 1910 there were more cases than nurses to overtake them. In that year the Hospice was amalgamated with Bruntsfield Hospital; medical, surgical, and gynecological cases were treated there, while the Hospice was devoted entirely to maternity and infant welfare cases.
Dr. Inglis’ ‘vision’ was nearly accomplished when she had a small ward of five beds for malnutrition cases, a baby clinic, a milk depot, health centres, and the knowledge that the Hospice has the distinction of being the only maternity centre run by women in Scotland. This affords women students opportunities denied to them in other maternity hospitals.
A probationer in that Hospice says:—
‘Dr. Inglis’ idea was that everything, as far as possible, should be made subservient to the comfort of the patients. This was always considered when planning the routine. She disapproved of the system prevalent in so many hospitals of rousing the patients out of sleep in the small hours of the morning in order to get through the work of the wards. She would not have them awakened before 6 A.M., and she instituted a cup of tea before anything else was done. To her nurses she was very just and appreciative of good work, and, if complaints were made against any one, the wrongdoing had to be absolutely proved before she would take action. She also insisted on the nurses having adequate time off, and that it should not be infringed upon.’
These, in outline, are the interests which filled the years after Dr. Elsie began her practice. Of her work among the people living round her Hospice, it is best told in the words of those who watched for her coming, and blessed the sound of her feet on their thresholds. Freely she gave them of her best, and freely they gave her the love and confidence of their loyal hearts.
Mrs. B. had been Dr. Inglis’ patient for twenty years, and she had also attended her mother and grandmother. Of several children one was called Elsie Maud Inglis, and the child was christened in the Dean Church by Dr. Williamson, who had known Dr. Inglis as a child in India. The whole family seem to have been her charge, for when Mrs. B.’s husband returned from the South African War, Dr. Inglis fought the War Office for nine months to secure him a set of teeth, and, needless to say, after taking all the trouble entailed by a War Office correspondence, she was successful. A son fought in the present war, and when Dr. Inglis saw the death of a Private B., she sent a telegram to the War Office to make sure it was not the son of Mrs. B. She would never take any fees from this family. On one occasion Mr. B. gave her some feathers he had brought home from Africa. She had them put in a new hat she had got for a wedding, and came round before she went to the festival to show them to the donor. Her cheery ways ‘helped them all,’ and when a child of the family broke its leg, and was not mending all round in the Infirmary, Dr. Inglis was asked to go and see her, and the child from then ‘went forrit.’