Submitted, without editorial responsibility.
Dear Editor!
Would you be so kind as to publish the following? Thank you very much in advance.
There are many people in the municipality – fortunately – who support the cause of Nursing through an annual contribution. Through all these annual contributions, the cause can be maintained. But among those many people, there are also many who regard their annual contribution as a subscription, through which they have secured the right to the help of the Sister in case of illness or accident. And that view is definitely wrong.
And do you know what the consequence of that view is? This: that when such people have enjoyed the help of the Sister for a short or long period, they never think of gladdening the Committee for Nursing with an extra gift as an offering of gratitude. Why should we do that? such people then say; after all, we pay every year when the lists are presented to us!
If only those who cannot afford to pay did so, there would be nothing to say against it. But even those who are more amply, and even very amply, endowed with earthly goods, do the same. Do such people not understand that in this way the Committee for Nursing must always struggle with a deficit? And if this deficit is then supplemented by the diaconate of the Reformed Church, is the calculation so difficult to make that those people more amply endowed with earthly goods, who sometimes enjoy the help of the Sisters for weeks, even months, ultimately receive a handout from the funds of the diaconate? And is that what they want?
See, the work of nursing is a necessary work, but also a costly work. When all people in Aalten give according to their means – and when those who have been helped give an extra gift to the Committee – then the work in the Hospital and in the district can easily proceed. But that is not possible when there are those who withdraw for all sorts of reasons; nor as long as there are those who believe that for a single mark as an annual contribution, they can be helped daily at home by the Sisters for 3 months or more.
The Sisters do not mind going to the furthest borders of the municipality, but the distances are great; the Sisters have only one body each; and so everyone can understand that it is impossible to reduce the workforce, but also, that it is definitely necessary when giving not to ask if there are even smaller coins than half-cents, but rather, whether it is not possible to give a bit more than usual for this good cause, especially when the Sisters have provided much help to us or our home.
And if I do not ask for too much space, this as well: When the roads are bad, and when the weather is bad, and if the arrival of the Sisters in the hamlets is desired during bad roads and bad weather, would it then not be possible to have them collected by carriage or to give her permission to come by carriage? For Sisters too, weather and road can be too bad for cycling. A sister recently said: “I soon noticed that the people here in Aalten are friendly and helpful.” Would the people in Aalten not want to show that too, by sending or providing a carriage in bad weather and on bad roads?
And then finally. Is there no more old linen in Aalten for the Sisters? To date, nothing has been received at the Hospital. Come, housewives, check your cupboards once more and gladden the Sisters in the Rest Home with old linen.
And as a very last point. There is also no more money for the linen cupboard. And the linen cupboard must be replenished.
I hope that many will quietly read what is written in this piece. May the Lord grant all who read this a blessed Easter.
On behalf of the Committee for Nursing:
BARNEVELD, Secretary.
Aalten, March 1910.
P.S. With joy I can report the receipt of: 2 packages of old linen, f 6.– for use of the operating room and f 18.– from a patient who has been under the care of the Sisters for some time. Would a change for the better be coming?
