Nursing students lose bursaries

Press, 27 February 1984, Page 6

Nursing students lose bursaries

PA Wellington Hundreds of nursing students will be ineligible for Health Department bursaries this year because of Government restrictions. Miss Patricia Carroll, executive director of the New Zealand Nurses’ Association, said the changes meant that secondyear and third-year students who did not apply for a bursary in their first year had been told that they would not be eligible for the $lO a week bursary for the remainder of their course at technical institutes. This affected about 300 students in both second-year and thirdyear courses. In addition, the number of bursaries available for nursing students starting this year had been severely restricted, she said. “The changed criteria will have grave financial repercussions for the students who were anticipating receiving this form of financial support,” said Miss Carroll. “The association was not involved in any discussions with the Health Department to change the criteria, which we would have expected in view of our expressed concern in

recent years about aspects of the bursary. “The association is most concerned that the ground rules have been changed for Students in nursing courses and that the number of Health Department bursaries has not been increased in line with increased student enrolments. It seems patently unjust that these students, who were informed on enrolment that these bursaries were available, now have a source of financial assistance suddenly cut off.” This year 854 first-year places were available, 118 more than last year. Altogether about 2000 nursing students attend the courses.