NURSES AT MENTAL HOSPITALS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23807, 28 November 1942, Page 2

NURSES AT MENTAL HOSPITALS

PERMISSION TO LEAVE WANTED APPEAL AGAINST MANPOWER OFFICER’S DECISION (PA.) AUCKLAND, November 27. The acute staffing position and extreme difficulty in conducting the Tokanui Hospital were described by the Superintendent (Dr. G. M. Tothill) when giving evidence before the Auckland Manpower (Industrial) Committee yesterday. Dr. Tothill said that tne position in the institution was desperate. The case before the committee was one in which Catherine Mary Sonntag, a probationer nurse, appealed against the decision of the Hamilton District Manpower Officer in refusing to allow her to terminate her employment at Tokanui. She had undergone an operation at the Waikato Hospital, she said, and when she came out of hospital she did not wish to return to her work, but permission to terminate her services with the mental institution was refused by the Manpower Officer at Hamilton. She did not like mental nursing, which depressed her, but she wished to undertake general nursing. It was not as though sne would actually be leaving the nursing profession if she did not return to Tokanui. In reply to the chairman (Mr J. O. Liddell) the appellant admitted that for the last two weeks she had been nursing at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, where she had been offered a permanent position. The authorities there knew the circumstances of her case and that the Manpower Officer had told her to return to Tokanui, but they had told her it was all right for them to employ a person in those circumstances. Staff Shortages “They must know that they require the Manpower Officer’s permission, and they should know it definitely is not in order,” Dr. Tothill said. The appellant was needed back at the mental hospital as the staffing position was most desperate, and the nursing staff was working overtime. The institution was about 28 nurses short of its total of 63. There should also be five cooks, but there was none. The committee reserved its decision till to-day when it announced that the appellant wpuld be allowed to leave Tokanui, conditionally on her joining the staff of ,the Avondale Mental Hospital. A further two cases in which mental hospital nurses wished to leave their work came before the committee today. The cases were those in which Miss E. M. McGuire and Miss W. F. Hart appealed against the decision of the District Manpower Officer in refusing to allow them to leave their employment at the Avondale Menial Hospital. The appellants stated that they were thoroughly tired of the work and felt they could not carry on with it. They were suffering from nervous strain due to the nature of the work and long hours. Both stated that they wished to leave the hospital with a view to becoming conductors on trams. The chairman: If you did that you would find the work hard and there is also the possibility that you would find that some of the people you would have to deal with there would be nlore difficult than those you are dealing with superintendent at the hospital, admitted that the nurses were working long hours, but said that was due to a staff shortage. At present the institution was 34 nurses short of the normal staff of 111. The loss of the two appellants would mean an extra burden on the rest of the staff. Every endeavour was being made to obtain more nurses, but it was very difficult. . , Both appeals were dismissed.