WAUPACA COUNTY POST

August 5, 1920

 

COL. J.A. WATROUS, GOVERNOR OF THE WIS. VETERANS HOME

IN DEFENSE OF PHYSICIAN

 

Plenty of witnesses Corroborate Statement of Wisconsin Veterans’ Home Official

Visitor Declared Obnoxious to Workers and Attendants

Pension May Be Factor

 

Editor County Post:

            Dear Sir – There appeared in your paper of last week, an article signed with “three stars” that was so unjust and unfair to the Hospital management and the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home, that it demands a reply.

            The article would lead the average reader to believe that the woman, Mrs. Hutchinson, had just come from Kansas to visit her mother, an aged member of the Home.  Such an inference is wrong, for the daughter came seven weeks ago, and when she found that a rule, made by the Board of Managers, required visitors who desired to remain at the Home for some time to pay for a room at the rate of 50¢ a night and for meals 25¢, she let it be known that she could not afford it and asked if she might not be employed in order to save that expense and to add to her income the pay of $24 per month, her board, housing, and doctor bill if she needed it.  She was given employment as a dishwasher most of the time and helper in other directions the balance of the time.  She worked six weeks, but it was soon found that she was interfering with the duties of nurses and other Hospital attendants, and creating discord to such an extent that several members of the working force declared that they would not remain if “that woman was continued.”  It was also found that she was stating in the Camp that her mother, whose unfortunate condition has rendered her for some time thoroughly incompetent, so much so that her mind is almost a complete wreck, is neglected. The charge that the mother has been neglected is absolutely without truth.  A competent nurse, night and day, is in that ward, and very call she makes is answered and promptly.  Besides, the head nurse or the Surgeon make frequent calls upon the unfortunate lady.  Such false reports are detrimental to the Hospital and damaging to the Home.  Other reports circulated by the daughter was a repetition of reports circulated by ignorant person or person viciously inclined, that many of the old people in the Hospital were neglected by the Surgeon and other officers and person in the Hospital.  One of the false reports she repeated at various places about the Camp was that visitors from other parts of the state who desired to see father or mother at the Hospital were not permitted to enter the building without a pass, another absolute falsehood, for nobody has been required to get a pass to enter the Hospital, notwithstanding her often repeated report to that effect.  People who come from outside of the Camp to visit their friends and relatives in the Hospital are at perfect liberty to enter the building and make the visit at any time during the seven days of the week.  All they have to do is to report their object in visiting at the office.  Surely this is not a hardship.  If it is, a similar hardship exists in all well regulated Hospitals throughout the country.

            The frequency of the disturbances created by Mrs. Hutchinson in the Hospital rendered it necessary, if our help was to be retained, to refuse her admission to the Hospital.  She was dismissed from the Hospital and forbidden to return, on Friday, the 23^rd of July, 1920.  Previous to that, in a conference in the Surgeon’s office with Major Lothrop and the Matron of the Hospital, Miss Olive Hammond, Mrs. Hutchinson charged that there had been a “frame-up” in the Hospital against her and she demanded to know who had started the “frame up”.  As there had been no “frame up” it was not possible for the two officials to give her the information she desired.  That seemed to add to her vexation, and she said to Miss Hammond, “If you don’t tell me who it was, my husband will come here and if you don’t tell him, he’ll shoot you.”

            The statement signed by “three stars” said, “When Mrs. Hutchinson went to the Hospital last Sunday she was driven away and abused by the Surgeon.”  The surgeon had experienced so much trouble during the past two or three weeks, caused by Mrs. Hutchinson, that his patience, apparently, had been tried to the limit, and it is not denied that he spoke with emphasis, but he does deny and several witnesses in the Hospital deny, that he used two words in designating the woman as having been guilty of untruths in her statements.

            Mrs. Donnelly, Mrs. Hutchinson’s mother, has been a member of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home, and a long time in the Hospital, for twenty-four years, and her present unfortunate condition has existed for years, and she is growing worse steadily.  Throughout all of the time that she has been here, Mrs. Hutchinson and other members of the family have visited here and gone to the Hospital to see their mother as they pleased.  The visits have been more frequent since the death of the father.  Sometimes one and sometimes two members of the family have been here for weeks at a time, and were given meals at the expense of the Home.  The custom of free rooms and free meals changed by the Board of Managers a year ago.

            Before this the officers and help of the Hospital (and there are some who have been there for a dozen years) have never heard any complaints on lack of attention to the mother, or any criticism of the Hospital, by her daughters.  Everything seemed to have been satisfactory to the visiting members of Mrs. Donnelly’s family.  One son has come more or les frequently, but has remained only a day or so and apparently has been entirely satisfied.  He has never made a complaint in the past or during the past few months, when Mrs. Donnelly has been under guardianship.  It is not likely that Mrs. Hutchinson or any of her sisters will deny that during their visits, since their mother was a pensioner, that they have not taken a greater or less share of the pension before returning to their homes.  There are several such cases as Mrs. Donnelly’s and that is why incompetent men and women members are placed under guardianship.  The pensions were granted to them and for their comfort and in case of the death of one of these, the guardian must account for every penny expended in behalf of the member and show the exact amount in his hands at the close.  This amount will be paid upon proof that the one making the claim is the one chosen to receive the sum.  I am not saying that he complaints and troublesome conduct on the part of Mrs. Hutchinson are chargeable to the fact that her mother’s pension is being kept for her benefit, and for the benefit of all of the heirs in case of death, but that would be a quite natural inference.  I am quite sure that there would have been no such trouble as Mrs. Hutchinson has caused herself and the Hospital and Home authorities, if there had been no charge for sleeping accommodations and meals and the wreck-minded mother’s pension had not been cared for as the government that granted it would have it cared for.

            I close this statement of facts with the following statement made by officers, nurses and other workers of the Hospital – a statement mad and signed without the knowledge of the Surgeon or Governor since the publication of the misleading and rankly unfair item signed by three stars:

                                                                        ****

            We, the undersigned, employed at the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home Hospital, and members, wish to publicly deny the statements appearing in this week’s issue of the Waupaca Post in regard to Mrs. Hutchinson’s treatment at the Hospital.  She was employed in the Hospital as dishwasher for six weeks.  In that time she caused confusion throughout the building, by lying and faultfinding.  Being short of help she was tolerated until, after repeated rows, she was finally dismissed.  Wishing to retaliate she came to the Hospital on Sunday morning and wrongfully accused us of mistreating her mother, a patient who is in a Senile Dementia condition.  Mrs. Hutchinson was ordered to leave, her disorderly conduct causing confusion among patients and employees.  The Surgeon did not swear at her as she declared in her statement in the Waupaca Post.

                                    Olive S. Hammond, Matron

                                    Mae Campbell, Surg. Nurse

                                    Kate Burgoyne, Asst. Matron

                                    Emma Moriseete, Nurse

                                    Mayme Kane, Nurse

                                    Martha Gehrt, Nurse

                                    Lilian Carey, Nurse

                                    Grace Brown, Nurse

                                    Mary Whittaker, Inmate

                                    Verona Prill, Cook

                                    Tillie Prill

                                    Hazel E. Lyons

                                    Ruth Johnson

                                    Gladys Swanson

                                                Employees of Hospital

                                    Annie O’Loughlin

                                    Elizabeth McAdams

                                    Emma Everett

                                    Lydia Kinnamon

                                    Marie Coop      

                                    Amanda Smith

                                    Johanna Kruger

                                    Maria Anna Mohr

                                    Mary R. Healy

                                    Millie Doty

                                    Mary J. Smith

                                    Anna Wallace

                                    Lucy C. Patterson

                                    Jacob Luther

                                                Inmates of Hospital

            The Wisconsin Veterans’ Home has a Hospital that in the matter of a competent surgeon, head nurse, well prepared and plenty of food, clean wholesome rooms, care of patients and competent help, will compare well with any hospital in the state, and the Home authorities have wearied of the falsehoods put in circulation about it by certain classes.

                                                                                                J.A. WATROUS, Governor