No application for nurse job

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 26

No application for nurse job

PA Wanganui Waiouru Maternity Annex, which caters for a steady flow of mothers from the nation’s biggest military camp, cannot, get a principal nurse, its chief nursing officer says. . When the Wanganui Area Health Board advertised the vacancy it drew no application.

The annex, which adjoins the military hospital, handled 57 births last year in addition to mothercraft and exercise classes and mothers requiring post-natal care after deliveries elsewhere.

The board’s chief nursing officer, Mrs Sheryl Smail, said the principal nurse position was crucial. "The principal nurse Is also the one and only fulltime midwife,” she said. “I am managing to run a service at Waiouru only by using a relieving midwife. Because she is at Wafturu she is unable to

relieve at the rest of the rural hospitals, which is causing quite a bit of difficulty." That difficulty included the temporary closing of Patea Hospital’s maternity service because there had been no application for the position of midwife charge nurse.

Mrs Smail said Waiouru had a mobile population, adding to the problem of obtaining midwives. "We have had some inquiries from part-time midwives which will help, but that doesn’t give us a principal nurse,". Mrs Smail said. The chief of staff at Waiouru Military Camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Clive Sinclair, emphasised the importance of the maternity annex to a community of predominantly young women..

He said the Ministry of Defence recognised this by Meeting about half the cost of running the annex;