When everything was prepared for Ugo's reception, Sister Giovanna went back to the duties which kept her constantly occupied in the morning hours and often throughout the day. She was personally responsible to the house-surgeon for the carrying out of all directions given the nurses, as he was, in grave cases, to the operating surgeon or visiting physician. It was her business to inspect everything connected with the hospital, from the laundry, the sterilising apparatus, and the kitchen, to the dispensary, where she was expected to know from day to day what supplies were on hand and what was needed. She was ultimately answerable for the smallest irregularity or accident, and had to report everything to the Mother Superior every evening after Vespers and before supper. During her week, every one in the establishment came to her for all matters that concerned the hospital and the nurses on duty by day or night; but she had nothing to do with those who were sent out to private cases. They reported themselves and gave an account of their work to the Mother Superior, whenever they returned to the Convent.
The supervising nurse for the week did not sleep in her cell, but lay down on a pallet bed behind a curtain, in her office on the first floor, close to the dispensary, where she could be called at a moment's notice, though it rarely happened that she was disturbed between ten o'clock at night and five in the morning.
The Mother Superior had introduced the system soon after she had taken charge of the Convent hospital, of which the management now differed from that of most similar institutions in this respect, for the most competent Sisters took turns in the arduous task of supervision, from week to week. At other times they went to private cases when required, or acted as ordinary nurses. Any one who has any knowledge of hospitals managed by religious orders is aware that no two of them work by precisely the same rules, and that the rules themselves are largely the result of the Mother Superior's own experience, modified by the personal theories and practice of the operating surgeon and the principal visiting physician. The scale of everything relating to the administration is, of course, very small compared with that of any public hospital, and all responsibility therefore weighs more directly on the doctors and nurses in charge at any given moment than on a board of management; in other words, on the right individuals rather than on a body.
