Sister Madly

Following along my theme of adults in the legitimate role of “student”, (an interest of mine as a teacher I suppose), here’s a story I’ve been stewing on for a while about a student nurse. You’ll find hints of it in the “Student Teacher” stories I wrote for Yolanda and Laura. Please note, I have no medical knowledge so if the “hospital aspects” aren’t correct then get over it. I’m writing a spanking story, not an episode of ER!

Sister Madly

“Who in St Vladimir’s name gave her this?” Doctor Jacobsen was beetroot red as he surveyed the chart. Mrs Evans had been brought into hospital the previous day suffering from chronic diarrhoea and dehydration, and had been immediately medicated and placed on a drip. Now the evidence of a monumental mess-up lay on the trolley beside him. Someone had messed up the delivery of tablets and the poor woman had been given a laxative.

“It is initialled by ‘LE’, that’s Louisa Ellis’ initials. She’s one of the final year nursing students.”
“Can’t she bloody read a simple instruction? A simple chart? Who gives laxative to a dehydrated person, let alone one with diarrhoea? Can’t she see the bloody drip hanging out of Mrs Evans’ arm?”

Louisa was only at the next bed, but behind the curtain she was invisible to the conversation. She had thought the order strange, and had indeed seen ‘the bloody drip’, but she had been told in no uncertain terms by her NUM that to question a doctor’s prescription was the task of the NUM herself, and not some snotty nosed know-it-all from university. (The Nursing Unit Manager at this particular hospital had been born during the war, but whether that was the one against the Germans or the one against the Boers, Louisa wasn’t quite certain. What she was certain of, having been told daily, was that the NUM’s first hospital had been in the middle of a frozen lake in the Sahara Desert and the NUM had had to walk ten miles through snow, uphill there and back, just to buy bandages for the troops, three times a day and out of her own money.) Louisa looked at the drug sheet in front of her, the pharmacist had definitely prescribed and the doctor and NUM had both definitely signed off on a laxative. Louisa had presumed it was some kind of complimentary emetic treatment, (in place of a painful enema), to clear out the gastrointestinal tract from both ends.

The curtain flew back, and there stood Doctor Jacobsen, his head a steamed plum, his body a twitching stick. Louisa stifled a chuckle as she thought of how like a cartoon character he looked. “Did you do this?”
“Sir, the chart said…”
“I know what the bloody chart said girl, I wrote the bloody chart.”


“I saw it was a laxative sir, but I thought it might be emetic.”
“Stupid girl the drug is not the question. It’s the time. You’re three days early! Mrs Evans is supposed to take this at the end of the course of treatment I have prescribed now, to release the pressure of us stopping up her guts for a few days.”
Louisa looked down. The chart was for Thursday, her birthday. Today was Monday. She’d been daydreaming about the party she was hosting and had picked up the wrong file. It was her mistake, but fortunately Doctor Jacobsen had run out of steam and had puffed off to find some more.

“Nurse Ellis?” The NUM. “I believe you owe Mrs Evans an apology. Fortunately she’d not actually taken the tablets, saving them to take with her lunch as you correctly advised. Louisa blushed and returned to Mrs Evans’ bed to offer her regret.

Lauren Evans was twenty-seven years old and had been on her honeymoon when she’d fallen ill. Happily her insurance cover had been enough to see her back to England, but the pain in her stomach and the feelings of dizziness were not what she had been looking forward to a week earlier when Marcus had ever-so-slowly stripped her of her bridal outfit in their suite at St Michael’s Manor. First had come her shoes, then her bodice, skirt, petticoats, and her hair was released from its pins. (“Nails and staples” Marcus had called them. “Wife, were you dressed this morning, or assembled?”) Lauren’s stockings had been next to go, tantalisingly rolled down, (she wondered if he’d done that before), before the button that enclosed her “lady place” was released along with her longing. Now she was on her back in bed, (a good place for a new bride), but surrounded by grunting and farting old woman patients and old man doctors.

“Oh Mrs Evans, I’m ever so sorry.” Louisa quite liked Lauren and had enjoyed looking after her. Lauren had appreciated the bubbly young nurse as well, but was not in the mood for it now. Anything, anyone, who stopped her getting back to Marcus was to be rid of immediately. Lauren merely grunted and closed her eyes.

“Nurse Ellis. As you know this is a teaching hospital and discipline is part of any young nurse’s training. Good patient care, good hygiene, good care taken in all aspects of a nurse’s demeanour, practice, and appearance. We will not suffer compromise in this hospital.”
“No matron.”
“Matron? MATRON? I’m your Nursing Unit Manager and don’t you forget it. Do I look like a Matron?”
(Actually you do, thought Louisa, adding to herself that the war in progress at NUM’s birth was probably that “of the Roses”.)
“Nonetheless standards of excellence and high levels of discipline must be maintained. I must ask you to bend over the chair here.”
(Definitely Wars of the Roses, but was she a Lanc or a York? Tee hee. Umm, hang on, did she just ask me to…) “I’m sorry Ma’am, did you just ask me to bend over the chair?”
“Yes young lady I did. We are a teaching hospital and you are in dire need of teaching. I have sent Nurse Manchester to fetch the rod from my office and I am about to punish you for your oversight in patient care. Must I also add insolence to your record.”
“No ma’am. What do you mean rod?”
“Rod. A stick for beating with, child. Ah, here she is now. Manchester? Manchester, over here with that. Yes girl, now flit away, flit flit!” Louisa looked across at the transaction. Sarah Manchester was handing the NUM a thin cane. “Unless you wish to join Nurse Ellis of course?” Sarah Manchester looked at Louisa briefly, then back at the NUM. She lowered her eyes, whispered a tearful ‘no ma’am’, all but dropped a neat curtsey, and turned away from the scene, her hands absently crossing behind her back to cover her bottom as she scurried out of sight.
“Surely ma’am I, that is to say, you, …”
“Surely nothing Nurse Ellis, now bend over the chair like a good girl, although if you had been a good girl you’d not need to be in such a position now would you?” Just then Mrs Evans rolled back toward the conversation, and raised a slight smile at the sight of the elderly matron, (well, she is isn’t she), waving her cane at the young and frightened nursing student who had tried to kill her. “Ah, Mrs Evans, you’re awake. Change of plan Nurse Ellis. Across the bed. Yes?” This question addressed to Mrs Evans, who smiled again, sat herself up slightly (Louisa jumping in to assist), and nodded her assent. “Yes, caned by me across your patient’s bed. Practically across Mrs Evans’ knee. Very suitable.”
“Please ma’am.”
“Bend OVER young lady.”

Louisa knew better than to argue, and did as she was told. It had after all been her mistake, but was she seriously about to be caned? The first stroke landed across the back of her dress just as the question had formed in her mind. It appeared the answer was ‘yes’, and five more strokes came in support of the thesis.

“Let’s have the dress up then.”
“Pardon ma’am?”
“Six across the back of your dress, three more with the dress lifted. Nine strokes.”
Again Louisa acted smartly to obey, standing immediately to lift the skirt of her dress up above her waist before bending over the bed again, her hands on the other side of Mrs Evans so that the patient had a good view of proceedings, and the foolish nurse was indeed all but bending over her patient’s knee.

“Stockings?”
“Yes ma’am, hold ups are cooler and more comfortable than tights.”
“Nurse Ellis your uniform guideline quite clearly states that female nursing students wear ‘black tights only’ with the uniform blue and white pinstriped dress.”
“Yes ma’am, but I thought that meant ‘black only’ rather than ‘tights only’. I thought it was to stop girls wearing white tights or flesh coloured tights. I didn’t realise you meant for us not to wear stockings. Sarah is…” Louisa stopped herself. She knew that whatever Sarah Manchester was wearing underneath her own dress would in no way alleviate what was coming to Louisa Ellis.
“If you wish to suggest that Nurse Manchester is also wearing inappropriate hosiery then I shall see her later for a good slippering. This does not concede anything to your case for being out of uniform.”
“No ma’am”
(Whack!) The first of the new set of strokes took Louisa completely by surprise, bisecting her bottom into even halves of pain. She raised herself slightly on her arms but was bent over again before the NUM could comment.
“Three further strokes were owed for your messing up Mrs Evans’ dosage. I’ll give you an additional four for being out of uniform. Two smacks for each illegal stocking; you’ve just had one of the three.”
“Yes, (whack! Whack!), ow, yes ma’am.”
“Stand up.”
Once more Louisa obeyed. She had not been spanked much as a child, and schools had banned the use of corporal punishment for girls before she had ever deserved its application. Still, she knew the protocols of a smacked bottom and how it always went better for the girl who was prompt.
“Hand me your plimsoll.” Louisa looked down as the NUM took up a seated position on the chair beside Mrs Evans’ bed. Without any further instruction she took off one of her ward slippers and handed it to the NUM. She then folded up her dress again and laid herself across the NUM’s knee. Four smart smacks of the sole of her left shoe struck her, two on her knicker-clad bottom and one each on the naked strip of thigh between the black nylon and the white cotton.

The NUM had left the ward to enquire after Nurse Manchester’s uniform and Nurse Ellis had dabbed her eyes dry when Doctor Jacobsen entered the ward, beaming widely. “Good catch Ellis. We’d forgotten to take into consideration that Mrs Evans had been hospitalised before her arrival in England, the course of laxatives may begin immediately.”