NEWS FOR WOMEN Secretary Of World Council Of Nurses Visits Wellington

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27638, 20 April 1955, Page 2

NEWS FOR WOMEN Secretary Of World Council Of Nurses Visits Wellington

“Th« Press’* Special Service

WELLINGTON, April 19. “A federation of friendship among nurses of the world” was how Miss Daisy Bridges, C.8.E., R.R.C., described the International Council of Nurses on her arrival in Wellington today. She is the council’s executive secretary. Miss Bridges said the council did not talk about war. It had survived two world conflicts and several minor ones, and all its member associations were, if anything, better friends than ever. She was replying to a question whether the International Council of Nurses had envisaged a plan of training for nurses in the possible event of atomic warfare.

There was an official liaison with the World Health Organisation which was doing work on the peaceful uses of atomic power, Miss Bridges said. If the organisation wanted the council to co-operate in this work, it would do so. Nursing associations in the Commun-ist-dominated countries of Europe were not referred to as “out of membership" with the International Council, but as “inactive,” said Miss Bridges. The council did not use the term “Iron Curtain.”

The Austrian Nurses’ Association had been received back into International Council membership in 1949, together with the associations in and Japan, she said. Such countries as Iraq did not yet have nurses’ associations. Other countries, such as Indonesia and Abyssinia, had recently formed associations. The Abyssinian body had only 31 members. _On her way back to London, Miss Bridges said, she would visit two new

and very small nursing associations—in Syria and Persia.

The New Zealand Registered Nurses’ Association had been one of the earliest national groups to join the International Council, she said. It had been a member for 43 years, and a New Zealand nurse, Mrs Grace Neill, had helped to found the council, as a member of the provisional comftiittee in 1899. The actual founder was Mrs Bedford Fenwick.

Thirty-six countries had full membership in the council today, said Miss Bridges. Nineteen had nauonal status, and the council was in touch by correspondence or visits with about 60 associations.

Total individual membership was about 450,000, of whom 170,000 were in the United States and 80,000 in Japan, she said. There were about 9000 in New Zealand.

One of the most humane pieces of work undertaken by the council, and one which few other professional groups undertook for its fellow workers was the register the council maintained of refugee nurses, Miss Bridges said. Between 4000 and 5000 names were on it. Help was given where neeoed.

The first British nurse to become executive secretary of the International Council, Miss Bridges said she was no more interested m nursing in Britain than in the profession in Iceland or elsewhere. Her job carried an international outlook.

Two years ago, the New Zealand Registered Nurses’ Association invited Miss Bridges to attend its Dominion conference in this, its fiftieth year. She will address delegates tomorrow