Place for nurses at technical institutes

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 6

Place for nurses at technical institutes

Technical institutes in New Zealand could provide educational training for nurses, the principal of the Christchurch Technical Institute (Mr iC. V. Gallagher) said in Christchurch recently.

Mr Gallagher was commenting on the report by the World Health Organisation nursing consultant, Dr Helen Carpenter, who has called for education authorities to take a greater part in nursing training. “The institutes could certainly handle this type of training.” Given the extra buildings and facilities, with staff recruited from the present training staffs in hospitals, departments of nursing training could be established at institutes in all the main centres, as well as in Palmerston North and Hamilton, he said.

How would such courses be arranged? “They would as I understand it have to have tutors from other specialised areas such as sociology and psychology. “The actual arrangement of the courses would possibly be on the basis of a one-year, full-time course of study followed by a series of sandwich courses . which operated with nine weeks in hospitals followed by nine weeks at the institutes,” Mr Gallagher said. Would this not mean that hospitals might be short of nursing staff?

“I do not think that Dr Averill of the North Canterbury Hospital Board would for example need to be concerned, for only groups of nurses would be away from the hospital at any one time.

“The sandwich courses could be so arranged that only multiples of 18 would be away and the remainder would be in the hospitals.” Mr Gallagher said the type of training he was referring to would break down some of the present divisions existing in nursing, such as the psychopaedic, psychiatric and general nursing areas.

“Also as I see it the nurse is basically a technician. It is for the people in the specialised branches of medicine to say what level of attainment they want for their nursing awards and if these are comparable to those required for technician training. In other words a reasonable level of specialised academic attainment concurrent with practical application. “If this is what they want then it is obvious that the technical institutes can provide it.”

He emphasised that technical institutes were already providing training in paramedical areas. “Also you should remember that training for nurses within the technical institutes would be for an attainment at the institutes’ level rather than a diploma award Which could evolve into an unnecessary degree level.” .