Hospital Housekeeping by Charlotte A. Aikens

[Sidenote: The Hospital Ward]

It is in the hospital ward that the major portion of routine hospital work is accomplished, and where the nurses who will have much of the responsibility of the hospital work of the future will be trained in habits of accuracy and neatness, in proper systems of ward work and good hospital housekeeping. Inasmuch as the number of hospital officers varies with the size and demands of the hospital, it should be understood that for the purposes of these papers the hospital housekeeper combines the position of superintendent of nurses and matron-the plan that is generally conceded to be productive of the greatest degree of harmony. In all but small hospitals, competent assistants in both the nursing and domestic departments will be needed, but the authority and responsibility of affairs domestic should be centered in one woman. Whatever may be the opinion of hospital trustees on that point, no one who has lived for a year in a hospital where the superintendent of nurses and the matron were equal in authority, and pulling in opposite directions, will sigh for a repetition of the experience.