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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Thanet isolation hosp Kate Surry


Ralphed

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Hi, I'm used to asking questions about soldiers, battles and places so i'll tell you what i know and then maybe someone could point me in the right direction as what questions to ask.

Here goes;

I've come across some papers of my great aunt Kate Surry or as is common on most documents Surrey. Any way i have a copy of a nursing certificate dated 1st of June 1917 where Kate has for the previous two years been learning about FEVER nursing at the Thanet isolation hospital in Haine nr Ramsgate.

At the time of getting her cert she is 20/21 so she has been at it a while and i would like to know;

Was the hosp used during the war and If so, would she have been treating soldiers with fevers because of wounds etc.

Would she have been anywhere else prior to being at the hospital, poss a VAD and can i find out where and when?

I know but have to research that she goes to be a nurse at The Homestead, Seaton Devon on the 17th of May 1919.

Any pointers or help would be welcome.

Regards Ralph.

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Isle of Thanet Isolation Hospital, Haine. In February 1915 a patient from Ramsgate VAD Hospital, suffering from enteric fever, was taken to this hospital, so it may well have been used for other cases throughout the War.

Source: http://www.kentvad.org/pages/military-kent.html

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There's every chance that he was treated by great aunt as it says on her certificate that she was trained to treat enteric and scarlet fever. ( Not that i could make out what the enteric bit said on the document but i can now )/

I love this site ask a ? and someone will shed some light on it. :hypocrite:

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Haine Hospital was one of my responsibilities in the 1980s. Some years later it was demolished to make way for the Westwood shopping centre.

Michael

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Thanks for all the replies.

I knew that most towns had isolation hospitals and this is what intrigue's me about Aunt Kate. She comes from Southgate (Middx) and on the 1911 census she is 14 working as a maid in a house in the local area and there must of been lots of nearer hospitals than one at the far end of Kent that she could have gone to in order to be trained.

Was she there because of the war and if so, what was she doing before/ early part of the conflict.

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Ralph

Your great-aunt would have been rather young to start nurse training when she did. To do a three year general training at that time, most hospitals would not consider women under the age of twenty, and many insisted on a lower age limit of 23 to 25. So younger women wanting to nurse didn't have as many opportunities. Because fever/isolation hospitals were not so popular, they found it harder to attract staff, so were more willing to engage younger women to do a two year fever training. By the time a fever course was completed, they could then go on to a general hospital to complete a full training if they wished - they would be old enough by then, so it had filled a gap and given them experience.

Women going to train as nurses very often chose to go some distance away from home - in fact it was a minority who went to their local hospital. In addition, hospitals were much smaller then than now and often took on less than six women a year as probationers. This meant that it could be hard for a candidate to trawl around to find somewhere that would offer her a place. So where they ended up could be due to a combination of reasons, even if you dismiss the fact that a woman might be eager to put distance between herself and her family. It was also the case that some girls went to asylums and isolation hospitals as maids/domestics at a very young age, and trained when they got a little older, so she could have been at Haine for longer - perhaps from the age of 15.

It might have been possible for her to fit in some service as a VAD and if she did there may be some record of her at the British Red Cross Society Archives - contact email can be found via this page:

BRCS Archives

I have copies here of the General Nursing Council Register for 1928 and 1942, but her name doesn't appear - probably because she married? I can see a marriage entry in 1924 to a Williams which might fit? Or could be totally wrong :wacko:

Sue

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Thanks for the heads up Sue.

To be honest i don't know if she ever got married. All the family trees on ancestry that i'm connected to, don't show any evidence. My sister says she has more family documents and that later on ( I don't know how much later) Aunt Kate worked at Severalls mental hospital in Colchester . I Don't know what she did while she was there and i'll have to wait to see when i get copies of the documents.

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