First annual report : for the year 1895 / Sunderland Borough Asylum.

  • Sunderland Borough Asylum.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First annual report : for the year 1895 / Sunderland Borough Asylum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/48 (page 12)
    Praise for the Staff. “ Trained ” Nurses and Asylums. No restraint or seclusion. Changes in the Medical Staff. themselves, that others are of an explosive condition of mind, and that many of the new-comers, before they can be brought under proper treatment, are violent and difficult to control, the watchfulness and care which have been observed by your officials will easily be seen. I think the staff*deserves great praise. A nurse upon the insane has many trying duties to perform. Over and above ordinary nursing duties, she has to meet emergencies requiring great tact and common sense ; she has to attend to patients who are often of disagreeable habits, who are irritable and irritating, abusive and unthankful, owing to the nature of their illness. It is a pity that angels are not available for Asylum service ! There are, of course, grand exceptions, but the average “ trained ” nurse is a useless person in an Asylum, and she is in the “ Mother Gamp ” stage of ignorance as to the treatment of mental cases. When it is remembered that one in every 300 of the population is in an Asylum, and for every one in an Asylum there is certainly another insane person outside, it is surprising that “ trained ” nurses are satisfied to remain in a state of African darkness and ignorance regarding such a common disease. I look forward to the time when no nurse will dare to call herself “ trained ” unless she has had the valuable experience of service in an Asylum. There has been no necessity to restrain any patient with the strait jacket, or by any other mechanical means, and no patient has been secluded in a room by himself on account of his mental condition, except for sleeping purposes at night. Whilst I look upon restraint and seclusion on the whole as essentially bad treatment for the insane, yet in an extreme case, if I thought it for the good of the patient, I should not hesitate to use either of these means of treatment. For the information of the curious, I may say that the Asylum does not possess a strait jacket. For the first three months after the Asylum opened I had the valuable assistance of Mr. J. C. Poole as temporary Assistant Medical Officer. He was succeeded by Dr. Alexander R. Moon, who, unfortunately, did not enjoy good health, had to resign in consequence in December, and has since died. Dr. Moon was succeeded by Dr. Thomas Yeates, who had a training