NURSES FOR HOME AND OVERSEAS SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 147, 16 March 1940, Page 10

NURSES FOR HOME AND OVERSEAS SERVICE

From remarks made by Miss Lambic, Director of the Nursing Division of the Public Health Department, at the Red Cross Conference in Wellington on Wednesday, it would appear that care will have to be taken to ensure that the supply of trained nurses, and of those .partially trained for service in the Voluntary Aid Division, is not allowed to fall below the minimum requirements for carrying on the nursing services within the Dominion. Miss Lambic pointed out that there had been a large number of applications from both trained nurses and V.A.D.’s keenly desirous of enrolling for service overseas. The military authorities in the meantime had refused to accept other than trained nurses, but she was unable to say whether V.A.D.’s might be accepted later on. There has been a definite shortage of trained nurses in New Zealand during the last few years, and this has become more acute with the increasing demand for hospital services and the substantial extensions of existing hospital accommodation. Furthermore, New Zealand trained nurses may be seconded for service in Rarotonga, Samoa and Fiji. It is due to those communities that their needs should be adequately served. So serious has the shortage of trained nurses become that measures have had to be devised for reinforcing the nursing seivice with a Voluntary Aid Division, members of which receive sufficient training to qualify them for less important duties in the hospitals, thus providing much needed relief for the trained staffs. Trained male nursing aids have also been brought into the scheme. Under modern hospital conditions the doctor is very largely dependent on the trained nurse, whose responsibilities are much greater now than formerly. The trained nursing division is really the backbone of the hospital services, and it is obviously important therefore that its strength in personnel should be maintained. It is reassuring, therefore, to note that the position is being carefully watched.