PRIVATE NURSES' HOSTEL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 294, 5 September 1908, Page 11

PRIVATE NURSES' HOSTEL.

For a long time past the Privato Nurses Association has beon hunting for a house that was large enough to servo as a hostel and sufficiently central to he. used as a club, and Very difficult has tho search been. Now they have secured a houso admirably suited for their purpose, and this was formally opened yesterday afternoon by Mrs. Kendall Jt is a large nine-roomed house on tho left side of Uppor Willis Street, just a littlo way past tho corner of Glmzneo Street. It stands a little back from tho road, and behind it there is a well-cultivated stretch of grass and garden which gets the sun all day, and should provide a pleasant resort for tho nurses who liavo been much confined to sick rooms.

The object of the hostel is two-fold: it is to provide a home for mombers of the association between thoir different cases, and a club-room for noil-resident nurses. Tho private nurse is always on the movo, she lias no continuing abode, and this enables tho hostel to take in a great many/ more than there is room for at any given time. You are shown a bright largo room, with two narrow beds, four chests of drawers, and four cup-' boards, and you are told that it belongs to four nurses, which means that while two are staying at tho hostel two others who aro on duty have the right to use thoso drawers and cupboards, a groat convenience to women who have to live so much in other peoples'houses. ■ There aro other smaller rooms which can bo resorved continuously on payment of a rather higher fee. All the bedrooms aro bright and cheerful-looking, tho floors covered with linoleum, tho walls prettily papered, and the furnituro simplo and artistic. The drawing-room is a charming comfortably furnished room with a stained floor and a large Oriental carpet in glowing colours. There is an attractively-designed green wallpaper, with landscape frieze that makes an excellent background for the pictures that have been presented to the home, and among its treasures is a piano. " Tho club-room across the passago has not been'fully furnished, but when' complete it' is' to have a large writing-table, many' easy chairs and tables for the'' magazines which aro to bo among the attractions of tho place. In addition to the bedrooms in tho house there aro four in an annexe a little way off, and theso, though rather lonely, look quaint and comfortable.

The association supports a trained nurse who lives at the hostel, and .whose services may be obtained by thoso in need of her. There' are many peoplo in Wellington who have no room to accommodate a trained nurse, who, perhaps, cannot pay the full week's fee, or who, perhaps, while requiring a certain amount of skilled assistance, aro perfectly well ablo •to get along with an hour's attention evory- day. It is to help these people that tho nurse has been engaged, and it will bo her duty to visit patients, always strictly ■ under a doctor's' direction, to dress wounds, make tho patient comfortable for the day, or do any of those little skilled acts that add so much to a patient's comfort, but can hardly bo performed by, any untrained person. Nurse Atkins, who has been engaged by tho association already finds her services in much demand. The fee charged for her services must, of course, vary with the circumstances of each individual case.