Eye Opener
First Three Graduate Nurses of the Philippines
(Second of a series)
(Editor's note: This is a reprint of the booklet published by the author)
Felipa's Mother Clinically Dead
When Dr. Hall arrived from the field the following day, he examined Felipa's ailing mother Petra and diagnosed her to have an abscess of the chest. Meanwhile, Dr. Hall placed Petra on a round-the-clock watch and a week later, operated on her. The condition of Petra worsened after the operation and she was placed in an improvised Intensive Care Ward (ICW). The twelve-year-old Felipa while waiting for the recovery of her mother Petra, was asked by Dr. and Mrs. Hall if she could assist them. She would clean the toilet, bathroom, wash the basin, sweep the floor and wash and sterilize surgical and medical instruments. Sometime in the evening of August 1901, Petra's pulse stopped and her daughter Felipa hurriedly called Mrs. Hall and she felt the patient's pulse but there was no sign of life. Mrs. Hall immediately referred Petra's case to another American doctor on duty and also to her husband. The doctor pressed hard the breast of the patient and employed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but there was no sign of life. Felipa was already crying and praying as her mother Petra was clinically dead. The doctors did everything they could to revive the dying patient but of no avail. As a last recourse, as relayed by Felipa to this writer in 1950 during an interview at her home in Hipodromo, Iloilo City, the American doctor pulled Petra's tongue and by the grace of God, the patient gasped for breath and her pulse functioned once again and she was revived. Grateful to God's healing miracle and the skillful treatment of the American doctor, Felipa was invited by Dr. and Mrs. Hall to stay until her mother fully recovered.
Mrs. Hall taught Felipa English and at the same time the rudiments of nursing care. Felipa remembered that there was no formal class yet since there were many patients, 24 women and 12 men. Two young women joined Felipa who were Carmen and Nicolasona Solarte, sisters of Rev. Paulino Solarte, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Panay. They were taught the rudiments of arithmetic and how to read and write by Mrs. Hall. Furthermore they were taught how to take the temperature, pulse, respiration and how to identify simple surgical supplies. Classes were held at Dr. & Mrs. Hall's house. However, two months later, the good doctor left the hospital. This left Felipa alone again in attending and caring for patients. Felipa and Mrs. Hall would answer bells, assist in giving birth, give medicines, dress wounds, apply poultice and dry cupping, assist in operations, thread suturing needles and they had no time for classes. Despite the appeal of Dr. and Mrs. Hall to young girls and their parents in Leon and Tubungan to work in the hospital during their visitation to sick people nobody heeded the appeal of the American couple. Felipa related that as gossiped by ignorant and superstitious barrio folk, parents and their daughters became suspicious of the Americans as "witches".
Apprentice-Nurse All-Round Duty
Felipa related that the upper room of the nipa hospital was their dormitory while patients were situated on the ground floor. "Aside from attending to patients, I had to clean instruments at 6:00 o'clock in the morning; prepare sponges for use in operation and sterilize doctor's gowns at 2:00 P.M. I often slept at twelve midnight, very very late," the nurse-apprentice told us. "One time," Felipa continued, "I was given a diploma after assisting an American patient in giving birth in the absence of a doctor. When the doctor came, everything was finished."
With the influx of many sick people coming from the city and nearby towns, Dr. and Mrs. Hall were worried as Felipa was the only nurse-trainee and she had to work from early morning and even beyond midnight, seven days a week. (To be continued)
(Part 3 on Thursday, April 26, 2007)