INDIAN NURSES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25247, 28 July 1947, Page 2

INDIAN NURSES

TRAINING IN N.Z. HOSPITALS

UNIVERSAL PLAN FOR EXCHANGE

<P.A.) WELLINGTON, July 27. As part of a universal plan to exchange nurses of different nationalities, arrangements are being made for about 20 Indian girls, to receive their basic training in New Zealand by Miss E. E. Hutchings, chief nursing superintendent of the Indian Medical Service, who arrived in Auckland from Sydney by flyingboat on Saturday. Nurses selected for the course would spend about four years in New Zealand hospitals if agreement on conditions between the Health authorities here and the Government of India could be reached. Miss Hutchings said. The, girls would be chosen from cultured Indian classes, and there was no danger of undesirable Asiatics taking advantage of the proposed scheme. The Indian nursing service had made definite strides, Miss Hutchings continued. At New Delhi there was a college which gave degrees in nursing, an aspect of the profession which was not encountered in New Zealand.

Speaking of the international exchange of nurses, she said that 11 Indian nurses were studying in England, and that 21 were on their way to that country. Four would receive post-graduate training. Another four nurses recently returned from Toronto. Canada, where they underwent a similac course.

Miss Hutchings will spend a fortnight in New Zealand, during which time she will be accompanied by Miss M. I. Lambie, Director of the Nursing Division of the Department of Health. She will leave for Wellington on Tuesday, where she will discuss the nlan with the Minister of Health (Miss M. B. Howard) and heads of the department.