Our Catltolic Heritage in T exa.s
railroad employees by which the company agreed to pay a dollar a day for each patient and the Hospital was to furnish ambulance service, nursing, board, and lodging. Dressing and extras for surgical cases were to be furnished by the Company's surgeons. Within a few months, similar contracts were made to care for the employees of practically all the railroads entering the city. It is worth noting that the first patient after St. Joseph Hospital became the property of the Sisters was a charity surgical case, admitted at the request of the city physician, Dr. Brown. The day by day record of the management of the hospital by the Sisters tells simply an amazing story of sacrifice and devotion. Mondays, it consistently records "no one at- tended Mass this morning ... being wash day." From time to time furniture had to be renewed and rooms retouched. The record then has the simple entry "all Sisters are busy today painting the furniture in the private rooms," that is, all not needed to nurse patients. The sense of charity was never lost or forgotten. The record has entries like this "an Egyptian boy, somewhat sick, presented himself ... and the Sisters employed him around the yard ... until he could get well." 38 Transportation has been so revolutionized today that it is difficult to realize how it handicapped service and a person's movement. When an emergency call for an ambulance came, the horses had to be hitched. "An ambulance was phoned for," says the record; "but on account of both horses being lame we had to telephone for an Express wagon to accommodate the patient." The Sisters missed Mass on May 24, .1889, "on account of the tardiness of the street car," which was a mule drawn affair before the days of mechanization. The Sisters had other embarrassing experiences. Delighted at first to get a patient in 1889 who agreed to pay three dollars a day, they gave him the "best room," but a few days later the entry in the record notes with regret "our three dollar a day patient is giving us a great deal of trouble; he requires a Sister by his bedside continuously." The use of scrip or fiat money of depression days was not uncommon then. When the city was out of funds, it paid the Hospital with scrip for its patients. This had to be sold at a discount to keep the institution in operation. "The hospital," notes the record on one occasion, "was asked to sell its scrip at a discount of 12,½ percent." 39 llCited by Dr. Tom B. Bond in his history of St. Joseph's Hospital, quoted in Shelly, o;. cit., 56. "St. Joseph's Hospital, Records in Sisters' Archives.
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