QUEER THINGS DOING AT THE PEST HOUSE
VISITORS ALLOWED UNRESTRICTED INTERCOURSE WITH THE CONVALESCENTS.
CARRYING AWAY DISEASE
A Sample of the Dangerously Lax Methods Prevailing At the Municipal Hospital - Hints for the Board of Health.
Patients taken to the Municipal Hospital at Twenty-first street and Lehigh avenue, which is in that section of the city long known as "Swampoodle," are supposed to be isolated from the time of their entrance until they are discharged as cured. On the three or four gates which give entrance to the extensive grounds surrounding the city's pest house are prominently displayed the following notice:
"Visiting the hospital is not permitted. Full information in regard to the condition of patients can be obtained of the Health Officer, at room 615, City Hall, who has telephone communication with the hospital."
ORDERS IGNORED.
Notwithstanding this stringent order and despite the fact that no visitors are admitted into the hospital, there is daily communication between the inmates and their friends and relatives on the outside. Every fair day, and particularly on Sunday, from twenty-five to one hundred persons assemble along the slatted fence which incloses the hospital grounds on the Lehigh avenue side, many of them being little children, and these visitors freely converse with convalescing patients, shake hands with them through the palings and even exchange kisses. The patients in the Municipal Hospital are suffering from such diseases as leprosy, small-pox, scarlet fever and diphtheria. On fair days those who are convalescent are allowed to wander around the grounds for exercise. Alongside of the Lehigh avenue fence there is a broad board walk and there is a standing order that no patient shall approach nearer the fence than the inner side of the boardwalk. To see that this order is obeyed a nurse is stationed on the steps of one of the wooden pavilions that were erected several years ago when it was feared that Philadelphia would be visited by Asiatic cholera.
DANGER IN TH E PLAY.
Yesterday there were a score or more children Just recovered from scarlet fever or diphtheria, playing about under the trees. They watched the nurse warily, and whenever her head was for a moment turned a half dozen of the little ones would make a dash across the boardwalk to receive the affectionate embraces of their relatives lined up against the other side of the fence. An Inquirer reporter and an artist watched this queer performance for several hours yesterday afternoon, and took note of what occurred. Among the visitors, most of whom were women, was one young, rather stylishly dressed matron, wheeling a perambulator in which was a sleeping infant. There was a look of anxious expectancy on her face, and her eyes were continually riveted on the door of the wooden pavilion inside the hospital grounds. Suddenly there was
a cry of joy and a white-faced lad in knickerbockers dashed across the boardwalk, and coming close up to the fence was rapturously kissed by the stylishly dressed matron. "I thought you would never come, Willie," she said, smoothing the lad's head and kissing him repeatedly. "You don't know how much your papa and I have worried about you. How do you feel?". "Kinder weak, mama," was the answer. ''Nurse has just let me get up. Did ye bring me anyfink good?'' .
"Here's a banana" said the mother, and she handed the fruit it through the palings. Willie devoured it in short order, and mama wiped his mouth with her dainty handkerchief. She was engaged in this motherly task when the sharp voice of the nurse was heard, and Willie fled back .across the dead line. Mama threw him kisses, which he returned and then he went back into the pavilion. Just then the baby awoke and began to cry. Mama hunted up a bottle and gave it milk. When it had finished she wiped its little mouth with the same handkerchief that had done a like service for diphtheretic Willie, and with a last, longing look toward the pavilion walked slowly away trundling the perambulator.
NURSES EVEN CARELESS.
It was just half-past 2 when a young miss, in a breezy summer costume, alighted from a Lehigh avenue car and, approaching the fence, cried in a very musical voice to the nurse who was on guard upon the steps of the pavilion. The latter responded, and, walking across the strip of lawn and the boardwalk, dead line, came close up to the fence and shook hands with the visitor. They remained in animated conversation for some time, during which the juvenile patients notice: followed the nurse's example and crowded about the fence, to be fed with cake, sweetmeats, fruit and candy, and kissed and hugged by those on the outside.
"Some of those people have been here, ever since 9 o'clock this morning," said a man living in the neighborhood, who had stopped out of curiosity to watch the strange scene. "There is a crowd of them here on, every fair day. There was one woman who had a child here sick with diphtheria. She came to see it one day, and kissed the little one several times when the nurse was not looking. When she went home she kissed her other children, and they all were taken
down with the disease. One died and the other three wore brought here. It's a shame to allow It, and I spoke to Steward Paul about it one day. He agreed with me, but declared that he was powerless to prevent it, as the doctor allowed the convalescents to come into that part of the grounds. 'They are ordered,' said he, 'not to cross the boardwalk, but they do, and they are kissed and hugged by the people on the outside, and the germs of disease are scattered broadcast. What is the use of sending people to the pest house if they are not isolated?' "
.
No comments:
Post a Comment