MRS CLARIDGE GOES TO HOSPITAL
In 1945 while in the WRENS (Womens Royal Naval Service pulmonary TB was diagnosed at a routine medical. The doctors said it was familial, (inherited) and aggravated by the acrid smoke that belched forth from Navy central heaters in the Nissen hut bedrooms. I was sent to Wooton Hospital in Liverpool that was run by the Navy.
Treatment was sun and an increase in rations.Tinned peaches were the usual supplement. Emulating the Davos ‘kure’ (sitting quietly in the sun) in wartime Liverpool was not easy. The wards were long and large and noisy. The patients who could walk cleaned the floors with huge mops. All beds had to be pulled away from the walls at night to check for cockroaches. Patients stood or lay to attention for Matron’s and Doctor’s rounds. As the sun and peaches treatment was not leading to any improvement, 6 months complete bed rest was prescribed. Not a toe to the ground. At the end of 6 months, on the very next day, I was sent off home on sick leave to travel, with luggage, by train to Scotland.
Then it was back to hospital this time in Dartford, Kent. A disused asylum, with no plugs in the baths and peep holes in the doors. Back to bed and then some treatment; an artificial pneumothorax. (a surgical collapse of a part of the lung to rest it) My only strong memories of the Dartford Hospital was wafting round the ward very happy on preoperative morphine. On Christmas Day my family, who faced snow and Christmas transport difficulties to come and visit, were turned away as the Ward was having Christmas tea. No patient power then.
The next move was to a Sanatorium at Nayland in Suffolk run by the British Legion. A large country house in good grounds. Patients (all female) were in the house or in long huts built in the grounds. These consisted of two bed cubicles with stable doors opening (and always open) onto a balcony. Another year’s bed rest, interrupted by another pneumothorax, on the other lung, carried out at Preston Hall.Then home in an ambulance all the way, bells ringing in the London traffic though there was absolutely no hurry.
In the sanatorium days passed amazingly quickly. 5.30 a.m. tea and temperature. Sleep. Bed making. Sleep. Breakfast. Doctor’s rounds. Occupational therapy, this was exclusively making poppies or paper hats for crackers. Sweated labour at about Id. for I cannot remember how many hundreds. More eating, more sleeping, reading but only light books in weight as well as content, crosswords, listening to the radio and endless chat.
An
Iron Lung used for the treatment of patients with TB or polio.
The only actual treatment was topping up the Aps twice weekly with air. Then after a year a gradual getting up. First for a few weeks I hour a day, increasing week by week or month by month depending on any set backs. The set backs gauged by sputum tests, Xrays, temperature chart and BSRs (blood sedimentation rates). Now you could go out in the grounds, NOT to the village. You could help at meal times, act as librarian etc. The atmosphere was not depressing, few worried about their health and few died. Everyone was young. One patient towards the end of my stay was treated with penicillin This caused great interest and slight jealousy. Eventually after nearly 3 years I returned to the world in London and apart from continuing the twice weekly refills of the A.Ps, life was no different from that of any other early 20 year old. Yes, it was a waste of time and we should have all been studying and developing our potentials but this was thought of as effort and that delayed the cure by rest. The only alternative to that was major surgery: thoracoplasty (collapsing the rib cage) or lung removal. There were no effective drugs then.
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Activities |
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| The experience of individuals can give an impression of the system from the point of view of the patient. | |
| Ask the older members of your family or community what their experience has been of medical care through their lives. |