THE EDITH CAVELL HOMES OF REST FOR NURSES. [To THE
EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—In the hope that your interest in the nurses of Great Britain may render a brief account of the Edith Cavell Homes of Rest for Nurses and their needs acceptable, and induce some of your readers to give us that assistance we now so much need. I send you these few lines. It was Ddith Cavell's lifelong
desire, born of her special knowledge as a Matron of many
years' standing, to create in her old age the Homes of Rest now founded in her memory. The original idea of the founders
was to endow a most suitable house generously presented for the purpose at Haslemere, which was capable of giving a month's rest to a hundred and twenty nurses annually. The cost of this endowment was placed at .430,000, which sum was duly raised, and the Home is now endowed as the freehold pro- perty of the Fund. But as the war became prolonged this number was found to be quite inadequate, and therefore, through the generosity of friends, additional accommodation was found for various terms to meet the emergency. In this way there are new six Homes started capable of meeting the wants of six to seven hundred nurses annually; but the length of the war has made even this number quite inadequate for some time to come at any rate, and further accommodation must he found if the nurses' needs are to be even reasonably met. Not less than twelve hundred nurses are likely to require ae,istance in the matter of rest annually in the next year or so. .4 second freehold property, admirably suitable, has been acquired lately at Norwood, and at Hampstead and elsewhere Homes are being set up. The £30,000 originally aimed at has been increased to £40,000 raised, and money is coming in daily far the Homes, but you will see from what I have said -are hew much greater the need am, Sir, Lc., [There is no profession in which the need for places of rest is more urgent than that of -the nurse. We do not desire to appeal merely to the selfishness of the well-to-do; but if the rich realized how absolutely the efficiency of the nurse depends upon her being able to procure rest at some time in the year under conditions such as those offered in the Edith Cavell Homes, and realized also that without efficient nursing the best medical and surgical skill may be entirely thrown away, they would be eager to see the nursing profession well provided with the Homes of Itest for whieh Sir Richard Temple pleads.— En. Spectator.]
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