New look at post-grad, training for nurses

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34123, 8 April 1976, Page 6

New look at post-grad, training for nurses

(IVew Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 7. I The Minister of Health (Mr Gill) said today he intended to examine the “entire spectrum” of post-graduate nursing training.

In his opening address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Nurses’ Association, Mr Gill said that the

Health Department had already sought the assoch Ration’s views before forwarding a paper to him. He said he also had had discussions with the Minister of Education (Mr Gandar) and members of the department and the nurses’ association on the gradual phasing in of nursing educa-

i tion within the general edu- < ■ cation system. ] I “If we ask why nursing, i I unlike other health profes- i | sions, has until recently re-

mained largely outside the system, we usually come up against the numbers involved. “However this might not turn out to lie at the heart of the problem,” the Minister said. Experiments in New Zealand hospitals had demonstrated that a work force comprising a large number

of students could be re-; placed with a lesser number I of qualified staff at little or! no extra cost. “In a three-year period a;

Fgroup of hospital students; ; may give as little as 47.161 ■ per cent of their time in: nursing services. “It appears also that their i : sickness rates are higher ■ than those of qualified staff. It is with these facts in | mind that I intend to exam-: ine the entire spectrum of > post-basic education,” he said.