In the Midst of Life

was going off duty, Sister called me back.
    ‘I understand you are worried about giving paraldehyde to Mrs Ratski, Nurse?’
    ‘Yes, Sister, and lots of other things, too.’
    ‘What sort of things?’
    ‘Everything, I suppose. Her treatment, the operations, the drugs, like cardiac stimulants, antibiotics –just everything…’
    The severe aspect of Sister made me so nervous that I could not continue.
    ‘You are not criticising the treatment Mrs Ratski has received in this hospital, I trust?’ The words were delivered in such a way that they sounded more like a threat than a question.
    ‘Oh no, Sister,’ I said hastily, feeling foolish.
    ‘Good. You may go off duty, Nurse.’
    A few days later, in the middle of a morning’s work, when all hands were needed to cope with the volume of duties we had to finish before lunchtime, Staff came up to me and said, ‘You are to report to Matron’s office at once. I will take over your work here.’
    In those days, the matron of a hospital was a very powerful and influential figure, and most of them were quite outstanding women with remarkable minds, and great character and moral standing. A good matron knew everything that was going on in her hospital, and had her finger on every pulse. She had a prestige and authority that is quite unknown in nursing today. Many a consultant surgeon had been known to quake in his shoes if he received a message requiring him to report to Matron’s office – a junior student nurse might collapse on the spot. Miss W Aldwinkle, OBE was in the top rank.
    But I was not afraid. In fact, I was relieved. I had been called to account for myself once before, in an altercation with a consultant who had pushed me, and I had gained the impression she was awise and understanding woman. I felt I could talk to her in a way that I could not talk to the ward sister.
    I approached her door and knocked. ‘Please enter,’ a voice called.
    It was a large and beautiful room, in a fine Victorian building that overlooked a spacious courtyard.
    ‘Sit down, Nurse Lee. I understand that you are worried about the treatment given to Mrs Ratski?’
    ‘Yes, Matron.’
    ‘What exactly worries you?’
    ‘It is hard to put into words. What concerns me is the amount of mental and physical suffering we have put her through. But I think it’s more than that, really.’
    ‘We always meet suffering in hospitals.’
    ‘Yes, but this has been inflicted by us.’
    ‘She would have died if she had not come to hospital.’
    ‘But what is so wrong with that, Matron? My grandma died a few years ago, and no one thought it was wrong. She had a heart attack and just died. My grandad and my mother were with her. She didn’t have to go through the weeks of suffering Mrs Ratski has endured.’
    Matron looked steadily at me in a way that encouraged me to continue.
    ‘Mrs Ratski knew that she was going to die, and she travelled all the way across Europe in order to see her son.’
    ‘Yes, I know the story.’
    ‘So why couldn’t she be left to die in peace, like my grandma did?’
    I was only eighteen, and my mind was in turmoil. Vague and disconnected thoughts I barely understood myself came tumbling out.
    ‘What’s wrong with dying, anyway? We’re
all
going to die. If we are born, we must die. The road always goes in one direction. There are no alternative routes.’
    Still Matron said nothing. I was getting so worked up I had to stand and walkaround.
    ‘You don’t know what that poor old lady has been through, Matron. I do. I have been there day, after day and her suffering has been awful. Simply awful.’
    ‘I know the extent of her suffering.’
    ‘And it is all so futile. What has been the purpose?’
    ‘Mrs Ratski is alive.’
    ‘But what sort of life is this? We have turned a vigorous, healthy old lady into a pathetic invalid. She will never recover properly. And it may be that her mind has been damaged. She knew what she was doing before she came to us. Now she doesn’t.’
    ‘Sit down, Nurse.’
    Matron rang a bell and a maid entered.
    ‘Would you fetch a pot of tea and two cups, please, and some biscuits?’
    ‘Yes, Matron.’
    Matron looked at me and sighed.
    ‘I can see you are upset, Nurse, and you raise questions I cannot answer. Nobody can. When I was your age, I was a young nurse in the war working in France. Death was all around us. Millions of young men died in that war. Millions. Yet I remember one who came to us with his face blown