Stowupland's Health Care - treatments and provision
Today we expect our health care providers to hold specific paper qualifications but in the past things were a bit less regulated.
See also Stowupland Nurses and physicians
In ‘As I Remember It, the Rev Brame shares some interesting knowledge of some local early 20th century people who may not have have had formal qualifications but provided an essential service to the local community.
His neighbour in Church Walk was a Rosie Nunn, who was always called in to deal with medical emergencies. He described that ‘although she would not talk about experiences‘ in Africa it was evident ‘from the medical equipment she brought back, as well as her practical knowledge and expertise , that she had had some sort of nursing function in the British Army‘ (in the Boer war) p. 88).
Diseases & Hospital Care
Then and now major surgical intervensions required a journey out of Stowupland.
In the 1930s Ruth Brame received innovative treatment for a thyroid condition.
Not sure of the date (possibly in the 1930s) but in his As I Remember It, the Rev Brame tells us that his cousin Dorrie (daughter of Alfred Robinson), following a diagnosis of advanced cancer of the bowel had a colostomy. ‘at that time a new procedure…leaving her with a bag of faeces which she had to empty and dispose of frequently. that was a very unladylike arrangement that she hated.’ Sadly it was too much for her and she is thought to have committed suicide.
Stow Lodge, was formerly the House of Industry in Onehouse, but by the 1930s it had had a new lease of life as a local hospital.
A press report in February 1886 tells us that diphtheria was ‘prevalent in Stowupland. Issac Diaper, living on the Green, had 4 children affected, 2 of whom died.
