The workhouse and its medical officer / by Alfred Sheen.

  • Sheen, Alfred.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The workhouse and its medical officer / by Alfred Sheen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/104 (page 14)
    With regard to wardsmen and wardswomen we have no difficulty. Competent and willing patients are selected from time to time for these offices, but they are constantly changing, as patients are never detained specially for this work. It is looked upon as a sort of privilege to act in either capacity, and retention of the office is entirely dependent on good behaviour. No stimulants are given for this work. The Medical Officer and Head Nurse should see that these people do not go beyond their proper duties, namely, to act simply as helps to the nurses. They should never be called upon, or allowed, to do any responsible work, such as administering medicines, dressing sores, and so on. In a well-ordered workhouse hospital with 300 sick and upwards, something might be done in the way of systematic training of Nurses, and of Mid- wives, and such work might be affiliated to the Nurses’ training institution of the town, if there be one. HOUSE DIETARIES. The ordinary inmates of the House, not sick, are dieted according to tables drawn up for the purpose. These tables vary somewhat in different parts of the country, as the ordinary articles of food consumed by the poor vary. If such tables appear to the Medical Officer to be unsatisfactory in any way, it is in his