NURSING IN U.S. AND BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27097, 21 July 1953, Page 2

NURSING IN U.S. AND BRITAIN

CHRISTCHURCH GIRL’S EXPERIENCES

A Christchurch nurse who has just returned to New Zealand after spending two years overseas has much of interest to tell of hospitals in which she has nursed in Great Britain and the United States, particularly of the Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester. New York. She is Miss Brenda Marshall, only daughter of Mr and Mrs S. F. Marshall. She was educated at Rangi-ruru School, and took her professional training at the Christchurch Hospital. The Strong Memorial Hospital, she explained in an interview yesterday, was built with funds given by two daughters of Mr and Mrs Alvah Strong in memory of their parents. It was opened in 1920 and its capacity is 450 beds including those accommodated in a private wing, those in a psychiatric unit, and cerebral palsy patients.

Operating with it, as one unit, is the municipal hospital of the City of Rochester, the only general hospital unit in the city for contagious diseases. This has 317 additional beds.

Miss Marshall worked in the private wing, in which the lowest priced bed was 17 dollars a day with medicine and doctors’ fees extra. She joined the staff as an exchange student sponsored by the hospital, and lived outside the hospital. Although nurses are scarce, the nurses’ home is not large enough to accommodate the full nursing staff. One marked difference in hospital routine between Rochester and Christchurch was noted by Miss Marshall. The nurses at Rochester were not served meals as they are in New Zealand. They attended a buffet in the hospital—run on quick lunch lines—chose what they wanted, and paid for it themselves. Salaries were high, but the cost of living was borrespondingly high, Miss Marshall said. The hours, she found, were better than those in some British hospitals, and the patients, who came to the hospital from hundreds of miles away, were pleasant to nurse. Beauty Spots of Scotland “Don’t bother with the work. Miss, come and watch this good programme on television,” they would say lightheartedly. They did not address the nurses as “nurse” but as “miss.” On the staff of the hospital was the New Zealander. Dr. B. G. D. Bibby, of Hawke’s Bay, who was dean of the dentistry department and was at present revisiting Dunedin. In England Miss Marshall nursed

at the Royal Masonic Hospital in London, where the nurses did divided tutv except when they were on night duties. Then they worked an 11-hour duty, with an hour off for a rest. At this hospital Miss Marshall met another New Zealander, Miss Frances Clark.

With a South African nurse, Miss Marshall saw many of the beauty spots of Scotland during her days off from a hospital at the Bridge of Earn, near Perth, a hospital that served a big area, including a mining district. There she worked in the men’s surgical ward and she was greatly impressed with the modern methods adopted at this hospital. Of the time she spent on holiday, Miss Marshall has very happy memories of a visit to Florida, where she

went with two of her mother’s brothers. Messrs Hassall, who settled in America in 1906. Travellers drive to Florida. Miss Marshall says, with trailers attached, and many of the trailers were equipped with refrigerators, electric stoves and Similar amenities. Motels were extremely popular and gave excellent service. From America Miss Marshall returned to England for the Coronation, and was a guest at the Buckingham Palace garden party before the Coronation.