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Marrow nurse visiting Chch

Doctors and nurses at the Christchurch Hospital have had an opportunity to learn more about the care of bone-marrow transplant patients from a visiting American nurse, Sister Merrily Clark. Miss Clark is on a working holiday from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle. The director of the centre (Dr E. D. Thomas) pioneereed research into bone-marrow transplants. Sister Clark said the centre had operated for 10 years with at least 50 per cent cure rate for aplastic anaemia patients and about a 30 per cent longterm survival rate for patients suffering from other cancers.

The 20-bed centre was highly specialised and unique in the world. All patients there had undergone bone-marrow transplants and needed intensive nursing. The number of transplants done at the centre exceeded the total of those done in all other transplant centres in the world. Miss Clark arrived at Auckland in March and was invited to Christchurch by the CanterburyWestland division of the Cancer Society to give a series of talks to doctors and nursing staff. She has given talks on techniques used in bonemarrow transplants, the care of psychological patients, and the treatment and nursing care of cancer patients in general. Her experience has been of particular interest to doctors and nurses from the haematology, paediatric, and oncology wards who work with cancer patients. A report on the establishment of a bone-mar-row transplant unit at either Auckland or Christchurch is expected in November from the Hospital Advisory Council.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19790811.2.67

Bibliographic details

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 7

Word Count
248

Marrow nurse visiting Chch Press, 11 August 1979, Page 7

Marrow nurse visiting Chch Press, 11 August 1979, Page 7