Page:On Trained Nursing for the Sick Poor.pdf/4

 METROPOLITAN AND NATIONAL NURSING ASSOCIATION

TRAINED NURSING FOR THE SICK POOR.

beginning has been made, the first crusade has been fought and won, to bring—a truly 'national' undertaking—real nursing, trained nursing—to the bedsides of cases wanting real nursing among the London sick poor, in the only way in which real nurses can be so brought to the sick poor; and this is by providing a real home, within reach of their work, for the nurses to live in—a home which gives what real family homes are supposed to give—materially, a bedroom for each, dining and sitting-rooms in common, all meals prepared and eaten in the home; morally, direction, support, sympathy in a common work; further training and instruction in it; proper rest and recreation; and a head of the home, who is also and pre-eminently trained and skilled head of the nursing: in short, a home where any good mother, of whatever class, would be willing to let her daughter, however attractive or highly educated, live.

But all this costs money.

What a District Nurse is to be.

Allow an old nurse to say her word on this system, which