Hospital housekeepingAikens, Charlotte A. (Charlotte Albina)
Science
Hospital housekeeping
Aikens, Charlotte A. (Charlotte Albina)
Hospitals
Having made rules, it becomes necessary to see to their enforcement.
Exceptions should be few and far between. A rule that is not enforced
weakens the institutional government, and had better never have been
made. If it is good and necessary let it be enforced, if it is neither
good nor necessary let it be abolished.
The question of incompatibility of temper among servants is a common
perplexity. When it occurs it is just as well to plan for a separation,
letting the one who seems to be the strongest element of discord go.
In feeding help there should be always plenty provided—the quality
being about what is provided for ward patients. A separate bill of fare
for them would entail extra cost, both for material and labor, and they
would be none the better for it.
[Sidenote: Servants’ Dining Rooms]
Is it too much to hope, that, sometime, all hospitals will have
a servants’ dining room, where, apart from the heat and odor of
the kitchen, they can take their meals in comfort like respectable
people? Many of those who have labored on the servant problem seem
to have begun at the top for a solution, instead of getting down to
the foundations to build up a system. They have sought to establish
training schools and give diplomas, believing that was the one thing
needful to dignify the position of servants and make them happy and
contented in that kind of work. There is certainly no objection to
plans for training, providing they are not allowed to obscure other
features bearing on the problem. But one does not need to live more
than a day in some homes or institutions to find one reason for the
prevailing discontent among servants as a class. A hospital that
provides an attractive dining room for its help (which could also be
used as a reception room for their friends), that sees that they have
good bath rooms, lavatories, toilet rooms and sleeping rooms, may
expect to attract a superior class of servants, who will have some
inducement to remain where provision has been made for their comfort.
They will have more respect for themselves and for the institution and
better service can be expected.
[Sidenote: Sleeping Rooms]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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