NURSING BODIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 132, 1 December 1938, Page 23

NURSING BODIES

NO COMPETITION

WORKPRAISED

An attempt to clarify some of the confusion that has arisen in the mind of the public regarding the wort of the respective functions 'f the District Nursing Guild of St. John and the Red Cross was made by Colonel J. J. Esson, Deputy Knight Commander of the Order of St. John, who presided at the annual meeting of the guild yesterday afternoon. The two bodies, he said, although carrying out similar work and being closely allied, were really two distinct organisations. Until 1919 the Red Cross had been a wartime organisation, and all remembered whst had been done for the wounded soldiers and sailors. There nad «been a general wish after the War that what had been done during the War should De continued and extended to cover the general community, and the feeling grew that the organisation should not be disbanded. The control of the Joint Council, supplemented by representative citizens and public men, had achieved the object of converting that vafuable War service to the good of the community. Colonel Esson stressed the fact that there was no useless competition between the two bodies. They worked together in close harmony, and the existing control had eliminated any overlapping of work of the Order of St. John and the Red Cross. He paid a tribute to the work that the sisters of the guild were carrying out from day to day. Mr. J. Glover, chairman of the Wellington Hospital Board, expressed the Board's appreciation of the work of the guild, and extended the Board's co-operation and confidence in the function it was performing. WORK IN MEASLES EPIDEMIC. Tribute to the work the guild had done in the past was paid by Dr. F. S. Maclean, Medical Officer of Health at Wellington, wno made particular j reference to the work carried out dur- j ing the recent measles epidemic by district nurses in densely populated urban areas of Wellington This work, he said, had been responsible to a large extent in preventing the epidemic from assuming a more serious aspect. Prophylactic work, which had been done in addition to the normal bedside attention to patients, had ensured that children exposed to infection were injected with serum which induced only a mild attack of the I disease if it did not prevent it. Some 50 young children from crowded areas who might have been "bad x had been injected, and these all escaped infection or received a mild form of it with only one exception. Dr. Maclean said he would like, on behalf of the Department of Health, to thank the purses, through the guild, for the work they had done. Officers were elected for the ensuing year as follows:—Patroness, Lady Gal way; president, Mrs. E. M. Osborn; hon. life vice-presidents, Mrs; W. Young and Miss E. M. Rowley; i vice presidents, Mesdames G. Barltrop and E. M. Balcombe; committee, Mesdames R. Pearson, J A. Doctor, J. W. Jack, E. H." M. Luke, A. J. Dan^ iell, C. Corigan, N. Perry, Missses T2. Young, and W Evans; hon. secretary. Miss L. Young; hon. treasurer. Mrs. E. M. Osborn; trustees, Sir G. A. Troup. Messrs. W. Dubois Ferguson (hon. treasurer), T. G. Morgan, Mesdames E. B. Brown, and E. M. Osborn; medicai advisory officers, Drs. W. Young and Agnes Bennett; hon. medical staff. Sir James Elliott, Drs. W. Young, lan Stewart. A L. Young, E. Button, D. Whyte, W. Patterson, W. Bull, B. Wright T. Usher, E. H. M. Luke, J. Zohrab. J. Thwigg, Gordon Kemp, Montgomery Spencer, and Mr. (R. Martin; hon. "accountants, Rowley, Gill. Hobbs and Glen; hon. solicitors, Young, Courtney, Bennett, and Virtue; hon. auditors, Pattrick, Feist, and Jack.