For much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, nursing was not just a job, it could be a dangerous calling.
Hospitals, far from being the clean, clinical environments we know today, were often a hotbed for diseases. Nurses daily treated patients with diseases such tuberculosis, polio, typhus, smallpox, diphtheria and influenza, not to mention common illness such as measles, mumps and chickenpox.
After the reforms of Florence Nightingale, nursing increasingly became more structured and professional. Training programs were established, nurses took on more responsibility and standards of care steadily improved. Unfortunately, this progress came at a personal cost for the nurses. Exposure to disease was routine. Nurses were frequently in close, prolonged contact with infectious patients, often without proper protective equipment or even a basic knowledge of how disease spread.
In 1919, while nursing patients during the deadly influenza epidemic, Adelaide Hospital Deputy Matron Edith Williams, contracted the disease and died after 29 years of service to the hospital. She had stepped up as Acting Matron while Margaret Graham served overseas during the war. At her funeral, a double row of nurses formed a silent guard of honour, lining the drive from the back of the hospital to Frome Road.
Just two years later in 1921, 23 year old Mary Cecila Hart, known affectionately as Nurse Sheila, died from tuberculous meningitis, contracted while working on the wards. She was remembered by her colleagues as ‘a bright and cheerful girl’ who was loved by everyone. Her funeral was held at the Adelaide Hospital Chapel, with photographs showing nurses standing in solemn attendance at the North Road Cemetery.
And they were not alone. The early [Royal] Adelaide Hospital records are full of similar stories of nurses dying from disease contracted while working on the wards:
- In 1901, Nurse Hinze died of typhoid fever at the Adelaide Hospital.
- In 1912, Nurse Kitty Nation, died from enteric fever.
- In 1914, Nurse Kildea succumbed to typhoid after nursing infected patients, just after passing her final exams.
- In 1933, Sister Irene Ada Ridgway, Charge Nurse of Alexandra Ward, died from pneumonia.
- In 1935, two young probationers, Jessie Reid and Helen Vance, died within a day of each other from influenza. At the time, ten nurses were sick as the virus swept through Adelaide.
- In 1946, Nurse Dorothy Vereyokeu, who had started her training at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, died after a year long battle with tuberculosis.
Gradually, things began to change. The growing acceptance of germ theory, the introduction of antiseptic practices, isolation wards and eventually antibiotics and vaccinations meant conditions slowly improved. Public health campaigns like chest x-ray surveys and the arrival of effective TB treatments in the late 1940s led to dramatic reductions in hospital acquired infections and nurse fatalities.
These nurses paid the ultimate sacrifice for their work to help care for sick patients.
By Margot Way, CALHN Health Museum
