Nurses’ View Of Volunteers

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31677, 13 May 1968, Page 1

Nurses’ View Of Volunteers

Nursing staff at Templeton Hospital had no objection to volunteers doing the work they had banned, the secretary of the hospital sub-committee of the Public Service Association (Mr R. P. Field) said yesterday.

From midnight last. Friday, nursing staff have banned stoking boilers and incinerators, certain domestic duties and routine driving. Mr Field said parents who volunteered to do these duties could be undermining the proper care of their own children. The purpose of the

ban was to ensure that nursing staff were fully employed in nursing duties. He advised members of the Public Service Association who had thought of volunteering to remember that they might get into trouble with

the association by intervening. Mr Field, who was on duty at the hospital yesterday, said that things were working satisfactorily and there had been no complaints from either the administration or the staff since the ban was imposed. He said that he had been in touch with staff at Kingseat Hospital, Auckland, where a similar ban had been widened to include other duties. He said staff at Templeton

did not intend to widen their ban without consulting with the Public Service Association. Of a staff of about 300 at the hospital, 160 are involved in the ban. They are all nurses, 70 female and 90 male. Mr Field said that the staff’s decision to impose the ban had been made early last week after a meeting attended by 110 nurses. All but eight had voted in favour of the decision.