NURSING SCHOLARSHIPS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1196, 3 August 1911, Page 6

NURSING SCHOLARSHIPS.

_$. The Inspector of Native Schools states: The need tor tho training of Maori girls as nurses is readily recognised by everyone; but tho difficulties that seem to heset every step when an attempt is made to arrange for such training to bo given are known only to ■ those who have for some years past been directly concerned with the scheme. The hospital authorities—with ono or two notable exceptions, of which the Napier Hospital Trustees aro the most prominent—find many objections, and some of them even in districts with' a fairly largo Maori population decline to give any support whatever to the project. Wo desire to express our cordial appreciation of the valuable assistance rendered during the year by the Hospital Department, without whose co-operation it would have been almost impossible to curry the- scheme to a successful issue. During 1010 there were five Maori girls being trained as nurses in various hospitals, one being a day pupil and four being probationers. It is not possible to award more nursing scholarships at the present time, for tho reason that there arc no vacancies in any of the hospitals which aro willing to admit Maori girls. Nurso' Akenehi Hei, who was the first Maori girl to pass the examination qualifying her for registration as a nurse, and who' had also ~ obtained a certificate in midwifery; ■ died during the year from typhoid fever contracted in the performance of her duty. Nurse Hei was a woman of fine character, devoted to tho mission to which she had dedicated herself, and there being" «n few qualified nurses available 'for work amongst-the Maori people, while Hie need is so great, the loss sustained by the Department in this branch of its efforts on their behalf amounts to nothing short of a calamity.