150th Anniversary |
It was St Valentine's day 1852 when the Hospital for Sick Children opened at Number 49 Great Ormond Street. The project was the brainchild of Dr Charles West who had studied medicine in Paris and Bonn where, if I may be permitted a Euro-positive remark, provision for child health was more advanced than in Victorian London.
Dr West's ambitions are still being realised by the Hospital today, but in ways beyond anything that he could have imagined. He wanted to treat children whose parents could not afford doctors' fees, free. He wanted to encourage clinical research in paediatrics and he had a special concern for training paediatric nurses.
Medical science in the 1850's was in many ways primitive. I came across a book of remedies dating from the time of the hospital's foundation which, among other surprising suggestions, proposed that whooping cough sufferers should drink water out of a Bishop's skull,"when available" - as one rather worryingly was, according to a note, in County Cavan in 1830.
At the time, many people including Florence Nightingale were sceptical about dedicating a hospital to the care of children instead of nursing them at home. Since then, however, Great Ormond Street has made a crucial contribution to creating and developing the science and skills of paediatrics. Since 1945 the alliance with the Institute of Child Health next door has developed the role of the hospital as an international research centre. The influence of Dr West's initially modest foundation is now world wide which is why representatives of similar institutions like the Boston Children's Hospital have traveled thousands of miles to be here and are such welcome participants in this service.
"So honour physicians for their services" as the lesson said but do not forget the nursing team and the other members of the staff of the hospital who contribute to its unique atmosphere. Dr West wrote a book entitled "How to nurse sick children" which is under no illusions about how arduous the task is. "I would not advise anyone whose health is indifferent, whose temper is fretful or whose spirits are low to undertake the office of a nurse."
As the father of four children under fifteen, a veteran of sundry casualty units and a visitor to Great Ormond Street, my admiration is informed and profound for dedication of the nursing and ancillary staff and for the therapeutic atmosphere which they do so much to create.
Part of the secret is of course that little people, even with some of the serious illnesses that bring them to a tertiary referral hospital like Great Ormond Street, frequently display a courage and a will to be well that makes them better patients than many big people.
It is not sentimental on St Valentine's Day to say that this hospital over the last 150 years has inspired love and stimulated extraordinary generosity. It survived its first major financial crisis in 1858 thanks to Charles Dickens who gave a public reading of his works to raise funds. More recently the then Prime Minister Lord Callaghan by inserting a judicious clause in the Copyright Act 1988 ensured that the royalties on Peter Pan would continue to support the hospital as JM Barrie had intended. As it says to us all in scripture, "Go and do thou likewise".
Thank God for professional skill and donors' generosity but any genuinely therapeutic environment has a spiritual dimension. Dr West's own awareness of this alongside his insistence on scientific observation and clinical excellence is obvious in everything that he wrote.
But "Don't talk to me about a loving God". That is often said in the hospital and anger is understandable when you see a beloved child suffering. Easy speeches at such a time can actually be offensive but the spirit that will stay with suffering children and distressed parents and listen; the spirit that is self forgetting enough to live out the hospital motto, "the child first and always"; is an indispensable element in the process of healing. Even though it is St Valentine's day, what we need in extremis is not so much declarations of love but the word made flesh and God's love embodied in the peaceful presence of skilful and loving healers. The presence of such healers can help, like Jesus in the gospel reading, to banish fear. Such presence and love is profoundly therapeutic.
People from many different spiritual traditions make up Great Ormond Street but different doctrines are not so important as a common commitment to the sacredness of life and the inclusive love which that commitment engenders and which is a vital medicine and life support system.
Health in a person or an institution consists in keeping the balance between a strong continuing sense of identity and the capacity to be nourished by changing circumstances and the challenges which come from outside.
Much of what is vital in Great Ormond Street is not susceptible to statistical analysis and, important as it is, if the bottom line is the only criterion by which change is judged then there could be a loss of identity and memory with a corresponding impact on the unique healing environment which you have built up over the past 150 years.
In the past century and a half, however, there has also been an energetic engagement with change. This has given Great Ormond Street its international significance. Your latest plans for new building work which extend to at least 2017 show that you have not lost your courage or determination to lead the way in paediatric care.
Health involves recognising and taking in things which can threaten and disturb us. Jesus Christ taught us in his cross and resurrection that this is true even of death. Life must risk itself in order to grow. A life which does not risk danger, and this is true also of the life of the spirit, is a poor life. Many who have passed through the doors of Great Ormond Street know this to be true and the opposite is also visible in the life of the hypochondriac or the chronic conformist.
Dr West took a risk and defied conventional wisdom when he founded this hospital but the result has transformed the lives of countless thousands of children and families.
So on this Valentine's Day our message is - GOS we love you. For the past, for Dr West and all who have followed him, we say "thanks". For the centuries to come we say "yes" under the banner of "the child first and always". Amen.
