Nursing Profession

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 22, 21 October 1937, Page 5

Nursing Profession

State Inquiry To Be Made In England "Dominion” Special Service— By Air Mail. London, October 1. rpilE Minister of Health, Sir Kingsley Wood, has announced that he and the president of the Board of Education have decided to appoint a committee to inquire into the. state of tlie nursing profession. Opinions vary as to the likely success of such an inquiry. Dr. Somerville Hastings, chairman of the Hospitals and Medical Services Committee, on being asked what he thought about it, replied: “It is a useful thing to do, and I hope that the committee will take the evidence quickly and report. There is a shortage of nurses all over the country, and London is more affected than the provincial towns.

“Nurses’ conditions must be made more attractive, and that is being done, particularly by the Loudon County Council. “The old idea of nursing being a sisterhood in which the members put up with anything, must be dispelled. The nurse has the right to live a normal. private life.” Mr. George Gibson, chairman of the Trades Union Congress Nursing Advisory Council, was not so optimistic. “I appreciate the intentions,” he said, "but a great deal will depend on the terms of reference and the personnel of the committee. My own opinion is that it would be unwise to put medical mon and matrons on the committee.

“It is the iieople administering the nursing services who should lie in the dock and not on the judicial bench.”