National Health

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 261, 31 July 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

National Health

New Schemes at Work in England HESTER VINEY, an English woman who visited New Zealand recently, gave some interesting information on public health nursing in England. Miss Viney is a State registered nurse of St. Thomas’s Hospital. She received her diploma of nursing at the University of London, and she is a certificated student of the Mothercraft Training Centre and was the second woman to be trained by Sir Truby King. Public health nursing in Englandwas carried out almost entirely by the local authorities and the duties of a public health nurse varied with the population of the various counties or boroughs, no uniformity of method being possible on this account, Miss Viney said. With , such variable populations as the industrial one of Yorkshire, the pastoral one of Cumberland and the mining one of South Wales, it was quite impossible to adopt any set or uniform method of public health nursing, the system used depending entirely on the nature of the population. “We have various ways of tackling public health and in many counties it

is carried out by the Queen’s Nurses, a central voluntary district nursing, organisation founded under the presidency of Queen Victoria as her jubilee gift to the people,” Miss Viney said. “Wherever it is possible, economic and practicable, these nurses take over the public health work with their district nursing.” The system of national health insurance in England had proved a valuable institution in that it had made it possible for the working people to call on a doctor for advice and help in the early stages of illness. In particular | it had been a potent factor in bringing down England’s tuberculosis rate. In practically the whole of England the doctors had a highly qualified district nursing service to assist them in their work, the nurses visiting the homes of patients to watch their progress or to detect any other outbreak of disease. The school medical service operated in every school, thus enabling doctors and school nurses to treat younger children directly any defect was discovered. This system tended to put a severe check on a great deal of physical disablement, and as the work was supplemented by an admirable dental i service provided free for the children, the result was that a marked improvement in the conditions of the children’s health had been noted. Disappearance of Slums.

The active re-housing scheme carried out by the local authorities under various Housing Acts was another potent factor in public health, Miss Viney continued. If the Government persevered with the present schemes it would eventually do away with the slum problem, and with it a large amount of illhealth among the people. A large part of London had already been practically rebuilt, the tendency in the larger cities being to put the people into flats. Adequate balconies ami playgrounds for the children were, however, provided with the flats, ami all this had teen a tremendous help in combating disease. “A valuable suggestion has been made by the public health nurses of England to the Board of Education, that experienced, well-qualified public health nurses should have a postgraduate course in teaching methods and then be appointed to the staffs of schools to teach school girls all subjects connected with hygiene, nutrition, physiology and mothercraft,” Miss Viney said. “Nothing has so far been done in the matter, but it Is felt that such instruction in the schools would be of incalculable value to girls in later life, ft is hoped that the suggestion will be adopted by the Board of ■'Tflucatlou,”

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