Saints and Sinners

Chapter Five

Boston Christian Convent Hospital

Boston

Massachusetts

"Mostly we get a dozen of them in these cells...it means hanging the sleeping sacks from the ceiling but that is actually better, I think?" Graham Balcombe said as he showed Connor Symonds around the busy construction site. He had never seen it before, having only arrived in Boston the day before, but it was being built to the standard British blueprint, so he was very familiar with the lay out. "They piss in their sleep...so the urine seeps through the sacks and down the central drain...and the floor can be hosed down after they go to work...if you give them cots or even straw, the clean-up is harder?"

"It must be like sleeping in a hammock?" Symonds suggested, trying to imagine twelve sacks hanging from the ceiling. He did not think that there was enough room, but he was sure that Balcombe was right, because he had set up enough convent hospitals in his time.

"Not quite as comfortable...and it is a tight squeeze...but packed in together, they share their body heat, which is important in winter, because there is no other heating...nuns are never pampered, Mr Symonds? It is rather like keeping livestock...we keep them healthy so that they can work, but they are not pets...they are working animals."

"And these are the showers...obviously...hot water?" Symonds said, walking through into another tiled room.

"God, no...cold, mixed with disinfectant and soap, but never hot...it is good for their souls I am told...and it keeps costs right down...next, canteen...which is more of a basic feeding station. Bowls of gruel, cups of water...five minutes to eat and then it is on into the chapel before they start their shift? I know gruel has Dickensian connotations, but it is actually a perfect balanced diet, giving them all the protein and vitamins that they need in an easily digestible form." Balcombe explained, leading Symonds through the chapel and finally into where the hospital was rising from the ground. But the difference between the convent and the hospital were already self-evident. Everything about the convent was basic and utilitarian but the hospital would be modern, with state-of-the-art facilities.

"How does a doctor end up in hospital management?" Symonds asked, as they headed back to the site office for coffee.

"Hospitals must be managed by doctors if you want to put patient care first? Before...in the NHS...the mismanagement cost billions and ruined services, because the idiots running the ship did not know how medicine works? But I do...I know what any department needs to be effective and I know how to best deploy the staff?" Balcombe said confidently, sure of his value to Connor Symonds. His expertise was taking a new facility and getting it up and running quickly. And that was exactly what Symonds needed, because he was planning to open a lot of convent hospitals in a relatively short space of time. "And I have learned about deploying nuns from the men that first utilised the Order in Britain...using grunt labour to allow the medically trained to concentrate on patient welfare...it is my field of expertise, Mr Symonds."

"I'm impressed...so, tell me...how should we play this?" Symonds asked, as they sat down at a dusty table, discarding their hard hats and sipping at terrible machine coffee.

"Okay...I've looked at your plans, and I think we can do better...instead of waiting until this convent is ready to train your American convicts, we should get a head start by flying them over to a British training convent...it gives you time for more training and our training convents are used to the challenge of knocking reluctant women into shape?"

"I was going to bring the keepers here?"

"No keepers they let you have will be as good as the training convent keepers...as I said before, they are used to it...when you get your nuns back, they will crawl over glass and beg you to let them work...and less able keepers will then be able to control them?"