Nursing education for changing population

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33581, 9 July 1974, Page 6

Nursing education for changing population

Because |he population of New Zealand was changing rapidly, preparation for nursing may soon nwfi to include some knowledge of the customs and beliefs of people from the Western Pacific and south East Asia, Miss Bita McEwan said when opening the annual conference of the New Zealand Student Nurses’ Association last evening.

Miss McEwan, the principal tutor of the Advanced I School of Nursing in Welling■ton, said that people front many countries in these rel gions were now living, studying and working in or visit- | ing New Zealand. “Can you imagine what it plight be like for a Toke- ; lauan. Samoan or Niue Islander having a baby, being ijl or dyipg to the totally alien and almost incomprehensible environment of a (New Zealand hospital? And what it might mean if you could say in a familiar 1 language: ‘I am here to care j for you’, or show by your pactions that you understand i and respect the customs and beliefs of this person’s culture?” she asked. Miss McEwan has taught nursing in countries in the Middle East where the study

of art, literature, poetry, pustoms, social and political history were required subjects of the nursing curriculum. More than 250 delegates and observers from 47 branches throughout New Zealand are attending the conference, the theme of Which is: "I Care." Open minds Miss McEwan expressed the hope that delegates had brought to the conference open minds, ears, eyes and hearts, receptive and responsive to new ideas and different ways of thinking. “I am sure you care enough to want to bring about change,” she added. “1 hope you will' bring all youi individual and combined intelligence, talents, enthusiasm and energies to bear on really important issues and will not let small matters and interdisciplinary differences obscure your vision.

“It is a pretty exciting time in which to be a nurse and I hope that when you join the work force of professional nurses you will bring something of this excitement with you to the New Zealand Nurses’ Association and continue to demonstrate in the quality of your work with people that you continue to care,” said Miss McEwan. “I hope you are prepared to finally demolish the myth of the ‘borq’ nurse,” she added.

Nursing required an educated intelligence, a cultivated sensitivity, an accumulated and constantly renewed body of knowledge as a basis for practice, curiosity and an inquiring mind. The skilled hands of the nurse were the servants of the educated mind. When nurses stopped thinking and performed automatically and from habit, then they had stopped caring.

People who wanted to work creatively and understandingly with others in a helping relationship needed exposure to a wide range of ideas in real-life situations. No educational programme worth considering would separate the student purse from the source of her concern — those in need of health care in their homes, schools and places of work as well as in hospitals, said Miss McEwan.