THE NURSING PROFESSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1932, Page 11

THE NURSING PROFESSION.

England complains of a shortage of nurses. The discipline of the nursing profession dates from the days of Florence Nightingale. For a young woman of the middle classes to earn her own living was considered, it' not positively indecent, at any rate so closely bordering on indecency as to require the strictest regulation. Times have changed, but the hospitals have not in this respect changed with them. All inquiry into the cause of this shortage has recently been held, and one writer in a London paper has reached the conclusion that it is because, in almost all hospitals, mirsee are over-regimented and not made suMiciently comfortable. Still discipline must lie maintained, ami it was maintained <so strictly in one

southern hospital that no young nurse dared start up the wide staircase if the white-clad matron was coining down. They etood to attention till she pas.se.!. yet 'many of the best nurse* speak ill tho highest terms of their training in this institute, so there are two sides to the story. Times will have to change, states the London writer, and drastically. If it be practicable, the beet plan would be to enable nurse* to live out of hospital.