“Sunday, October 27, 1918, will go down in the
history of Hamilton as the day on which no public services were held in any of
the churches. The interdict which has been laid upon the city by the board of
health was felt for the first time, and thousands of devout citizens like the
psalmist of old, ‘fainted for the courts of the Lord.’ It was the day when many
an old resident missed church for the first time in life. Only services of private
devotion were held, while in the Roman Catholic places, masses were celebrated
within locked chapel doors. The weather being of the best, the day was
generally spent out in the open, with the ban on Sunday motoring raised, the
streets were busy.
“
‘It didn’t seem like a Sunday at all,’ was the thought that was expressed by
young and old alike.”1
1
“Seventeen
Deaths By Influenza Over Weekend : This is About Average Maintained During Last
Week : Many Nurses Are Ill and Hospital Staff is Hard Worked”
Hamilton Herald. October 28, 1918.
On Monday morning, October 29,
1918, it was Medical Health Officer Dr. Roberts who, again, was the focus for
questions from members of the city press:
“ ‘The situation has not
improved, judging from the number of applications for admission to the
hospitals,’ was the statement of Dr. Roberts, M.H.O., this morning.
“Unless more volunteer
nurses are forthcoming, patients must go without attention, health officials
declare. At the general hospital, 25 nurses are sick from influenza. One
graduate nurse and two probationers are caring for 30 patients. The resources
of the physicians are taxed to the limit. Every institution is now packed to
the limit and as fast as a patient is discharged, there is another to take the
unoccupied bed.”2
2“Hospitals
Are Crowded With Flu Patients : And There is a Crying Need for More Nurses :
Many Cases of Distress Reported to Authorities : 17 Deaths Registered Here
Since Saturday.”
Hamilton Spectator. October 28, 1918.
While the need for more
nurses and caregivers was only too obvious, and while the call for volunteers
was sincere, a sensational article in the Herald which could well have made
many prospective volunteers consider their next steps carefully:
“During the course of the past few days, a
Herald man visited some of the houses where volunteer were stationed. The
conditions under which the brave women were fighting the influenza were
appalling and well-nigh unbelievable. At one place, a dirty, little one story
frame house, the front parlor was occupied by a half ton of coke and various
other articles. The other small front was occupied by four persons – a man
sixty years of age, a woman of 22 years, and their two children. Besides the
‘flu’ another more dreadful disease was only too evident. The adults were not
married and the place, one of two or three such houses, had long borne a
disgusting reputation, according to statements made by neighbors. One nurse,
without help, had to wash the diseased people, and scrub up the whole filthy
place, a negro ordering her about, meanwhile. The mother has died, the father
is dying and the two children, whose little bodies, in addition to being racked
by ‘flu’ are suffering from another disease.
“In the house, one nurse stayed on duty,
alone, for 38 hours and had to go 24 hours without food. After defending
herself against several foreigners who did not know that the proprietor of the
place was dying and who tried to enter the place late at night, the nurse was
forced to call the police for protection.
“ ‘They’re short of nurses,’
she said, ‘and yet they leave a nurse and two little kiddies in a place like
this instead of taking the children to the hospital and releasing the nurse for
other duty.’
“ ‘When,’ the nurse added,
‘I asked the board of health for food because I could not leave my patients, my
request was referred to the relief department. Yesterday, through the efforts
of Relief Officer McMenemy, the children were admitted to St. Joseph’s hospital.
And when Dr. Roberts, four or five days ago, was asked to come and investigate
the house the house in which he sent me a volunteer nurse, he came, with
Inspector Shain, put his head inside and hastily withdrew to the alley, where
he called me and told me ‘it wasn’t so bad.’ On being told that it was too much
to ask a nurse to clean up such a place, Dr. Roberts told me that it was troo
much to ask a nurse to clean up such a place, Dr. Roberts told me that if I
couldn’t do the work, the department could quite easily get someone who could.’
“At another house in the west end, to which a
nurse was sent, the same filthy conditions prevailed. The nurse was left alone
with a man, his wife and two children. The wife died of the ‘flu’ and the
others were dying. Just about an hour before the man died, he became delirious,
and, in a very angry mood, got out of bed. The nurse rushed to the door and
asked the people who were clustered outside to hold the two children while she
tackled the man. No one would raise a finger to help and, while the people
looked on, the nurse had to shield the children and handle a 200-pound man
alone.
“Several other cases on
which nurses had been left without relief for 30 and 36 hours at a stretch were
reported by the nurses to the board of health, with a request that they be
relieved. One nurse said that the answer she got was : ‘You’ve got to stay
there whether you want to or not. WE haven’t anybody else to send.’
“And yet one more nurse was ordered,
shortly before midnight, to leave three or four dying people alone and go to
another address. Dr. Carr begged her to stay at her post, but the board of
health had ordained otherwise and the people were left to their fate.
“And, regarding the board’s
failure to investigate conditions properly, it was stated by nurse that two
fruit stores were continuing to do business, the proprietor of each flitting
from the room where his wife and children were dying of the ‘flu to the store where
the fruit was offered for sale. Dozens of people suffering from the disease
were sending their laundry to public laundries, too.
“ ‘And only three weeks ago
I saw a long article in a Sunday school paper with this caption, ‘Hamilton Has
No Slums. Thank God,’ ” remarked a nurse. ‘Why, if the board of health would
only open its eyes and investigate, it would find that conditions here are far
worse than in New York or London, England.
“The volunteers, too, claim
that they are left alone in places where the dying people’s own relatives won’t
come, and where no one will come near enough to help them. At one place a
nurse, after cleaning up a filthy home, had to soak two girls of about 15 years
of age in olive oil for three hours before it was possible to remove the dirt
from them.
“And for all this, volunteer
nurses received $15 per week. No matter whether they have done practical nurses
for five or fifteen years, this is their salary. Trained nurses receive $20 to
$25 a week. In addition, nurses’ uniforms must be changed every day. Their
laundry costs more than five dollars a week and they have to supply their own
meals generally their own masks and disinfectants, and pay $1for each injection
of serum they receive, just like any other individual.
“ ‘If I die from want of
serum and other things, it will be the board of health’s fault,’ one nurse told
a member of that body.
“ ‘You’re paid for that,’
was the answer she received.”2
2 “Twelve
More Deaths Here Due to Influenza : They Charge the Board of Health With
Neglecting Them : Some Terrible Places : Houses in Which Some Have Worked Are
Breeding Places of Disease”
Hamilton Herald. October 28, 1918.
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