conversations about medicine and life

Nurse Adelaide Hicks: a remarkable life

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Robert McAllister

Adelaide Martens was born in London in 1845, the daughter of a sugar baker. There is little known of her early years, but when she was 17 she decided to emigrate to the antipodes. She obtained work as a stewardess and sailed to Australia, then on to New Zealand. While working as a stewardess on coastal boats between Invercargill and Christchurch she met Henry Hicks, a cook and steward on the same ship. His mother was English, and his father a freed Afro-American slave. Adelaide and Henry were married in Invercargill and moved to Dunedin, to live in Leith Street.

Henry continued his work on coastal boats and Adelaide obtained domestic work. In 1884 they moved to Mosgiel where Henry worked as a woodsman in the Big Bush. They had nine children, and when the youngest was still a toddler, Henry was kicked by his horse. He died from internal hemorrhage, leaving Adelaide with a large family and no certain work. At the time of Henry’s death they were living in a small house on the edge of the bush near the Silver Stream, and when this stream flooded she put the smaller children on the kitchen table to protect them from drowning. This experience encouraged her to shift into Mosgiel and higher ground.

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“With Them Through Hell”

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Sue Wootton

With Them Through Hell11 November 2018 will mark one hundred years since the official end of the First World War. Over 18,000 New Zealand combatants were killed in the conflict, and many more were wounded or fell ill. Their experiences were so harrowing that most survivors, even years after returning to civilian life, would never speak of what they had endured during the ‘war to end all wars’.

Serving alongside them in that hellish world were the men and women of the New Zealand medical corps. A century on, Anna Roger has written a comprehensive history of this ‘other army’, which was charged, not with ending lives, but with saving them. The result is a rich tribute to the courage and compassion of those who worked “in appalling, perilous conditions and for inhumanely long hours” to alleviate the suffering of others.

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Humanising clinical spaces: art in hospitals

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Christine Mulligan

Life often takes us us on divergent twists and turns. Sometimes, surprisingly, all these different paths come together to make coherent sense. My own journey has taken me to architecture, nursing, art and art history. Together, these disciplines have led me to understand the importance of humanising clinical and institutional spaces.

‘Peninsula Hills’ by Neil Grant, Stoneware and clay, 1984. Sited at entrance to the Dunedin Public Hospital.

In 1972, Professor of Surgery Alan Clarke initiated the Dunedin Hospital art collection. He was responding to medical literature about the benefits of original art in hospitals, and to his positive personal experience of art in hospitals overseas. The Art Advisory Committee was formed, with the goal of populating the walls and corridors of Dunedin and Wakari hospitals with original artwork. Clarke believed that original art by professional artists provided the best portrayals of ‘life and nature’’.

Many years later, my unusual multidisciplinary journey would connect me to Dr. Clarke’s vision. [Read more…]

Breastfeeding: “a collective societal responsibility”

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Tricia Thompson

breastfeedingThe 194 member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) met recently in Geneva for the annual United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. The delegation from Ecuador proposed a global public health resolution to encourage breastfeeding. The resolution stated that research evidence convincingly shows that mothers’ milk is healthiest for children, and called on governments to “protect, promote and support breastfeeding” and to strive to limit inaccurate or misleading marketing of breastmilk substitutes (infant formula).

The resolution was unsurprising. It was in keeping with many others made over the past decades supporting breastfeeding and was expected to be approved quickly and easily. What did surprise was that the delegation from the United States of America demanded the resolution be watered down. When Ecuador declined to do this, the USA threatened to unleash a punishing trade war and withdraw military assistance. Under such pressure, the Ecuadorean delegation capitulated. When another sponsor for the resolution was sought, at least a dozen poor countries from Africa and Latin America also backed away, fearing similar retaliation from the USA. In negotiations, some American delegates even suggested that the USA might cut its financial contribution to WHO.

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“The Language of Kindness”: on being a nurse

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Cushla McKinney

The Language of KindnessAfter twenty years as a nurse in the British National Health Service (NHS), Christie Watson is leaving medicine to pursue a literary career. But with the generosity that characterises the job to which she has devoted much of her life, she has taken the time to share what it has taught her.

In The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story of Life, Death and Hope, which falls somewhere between memoir and manifesto, she offers readers insights into an essential but undervalued profession and provides a blunt assessment of the way in which decades of political decision-making have compromised the heath system in general, and nursing in particular.

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