NURSES' DUTIES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 17, 21 January 1916, Page 3

NURSES' DUTIES

RECENT CRITICISM

HOSPITAL AUTHORITIES' REPLY.

Do the nurses in the Wellington Hospital have to carry out disagreeable tasks that should rightly fall to the lot of men? This was a question discussed at the meeting of. the Wellington Hospital Board yesterday afternoon. The remarks made arose out of an article that appeared in the Evening Post on 15th January under the headings "Not Right," "Some Tasks of Nurses." The secretary (Mr. J. Coyle) read a letter from Colonel T H. A. Valintine, Inspec-tor-General of Hospitals, stating that the writer's attention had been drawn to the article mentioned, and that he had directed the Deputy-Inspector (Miss M'Lean) to make an enquiry into the matter, with a view to ascertaining the exact position. Colonel Valintine asked that every facility should be given to Miss M'Lean as far as the Wellington Hospital was concerned.

The secretary reported that he had replied that every assistance would be afforded Miss M'Lean.

The Chairman (Mr. H. Baldwin) said that, as far as the Wellington Hospital was concerned, the nurses did not do wor.k such as that mentioned. A man was specially engaged for the work.

Mr. 0. M. Luke thought that when such grave statements appeared in public print the board should go into com-: tnittee to discuss them. He was glad to hear the assurance given by the chairman.

The Chairman added that the man previously engaged in the work had been in the service of the Hospital a very lpng time. A new man had now been engaged. Later on in the afternoon DrK Mojice, acting-medical superintendent oftjthe stitution, made' a statement regarding The Post'n article. He said that' Very little could be said at present, as the matter was to be enquired into. " The article on the whole, he added, " can be given the lie." It had stated that the " men in authority " —which meant the medical men —had thrown work on the nurses that they should not have been called upon to do. He denied this statement at once, for he was quite sure that no medical man would give nurses duties that they should not have to carry out. The doctors at the Hospital were very particular in this respect, and he much regretted that public attention had been drawn to the unpleasant work that nurses had to do, especially in view of the fact that the duties implied in the •article did not fall to the lot of the nurses at all. The nurses had nothing to do with the venereal case 6. They had a very good man in charge of that ward, and there was nothing done by the nurses that they should not be asked to do. Some cases of venereal disease had been sent to the Victoria Hospital from the various camps, but he had gone straight to Colonel Valintine and asked him if the Hospital was to take in venereal cases. Colonel Valintine had immediately sent instructions to the P.M.O.'s that such patients should not be sent to the General Hospital. There were now no venereal cases in the Victoria Hospital except two cases for very general treatment. No venereal cases were sent from the camps to the Wellington Hospital, nor (he believed) to any other general hospital With regard to the patients sent from the Victoria Hospital to Clif ton-terrace, he did not know full details about these, but he knew that some of the patients there_ were old, decrepid men, and all the duties that had to be performed there could be carried out by the nurses without shocking their modesty or sense of decency. It would be better if the writer of the article'had turned his attention to the question of the suppression of venereal diseases, co that the public would do something in this matter. Something should be accomplished by the authorities to stamp out the disease or check it, and it was in this connection that the newspaper writers might do some good.

The Chairman said it was pleasing to hear from Dr Morice that the remarks made by the writer did not apply to their Hospital.

. On the motion of Mr. C. M. Lnke, the board passed a resolution expressing appreciation of the information given by Dr. Blorice and of the fact that the remarks made by The Post did not have application to the local Hospital.