HOSPITAL DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 112, 15 May 1939, Page 4

HOSPITAL DAY

CHURCH SERVICES

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S WORK

Hospital Day, which fell on Friday, was celebrated with special services yesterday in the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, Boulcott Street, and in St. John's Presbyterian Church, Willis Street. The preachers paid tribute to the great and noble work of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.

The purpose of Hospital Day is to focus greater public attention on the service rendered the community by the hospitals and all associated with them, and because of the inspiration created by Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War and afterwards, May, 12, her birthday, was selected as the day to do this.

The service at St. Mary's was attended by nurses, doctors, and sisters from the Roman Catholic hospitals. Monsignor T. F. Connolly, administrator of the archdiocese in the absence of Archbishop O'Shea, emphasised in his sermon that doctors and nurses were fulfilling a place in life as agents of God in their attendance on the sick. Those present were paying homage to the giver of all life. They recognised that the skill and science which enabled them to succour the sick came in the ultimate from God.

The service in St. John's Church was conducted by the Rev. J. R. Blanchard. Dr. J. Cairney, director of clinical services, Wellington Hospital, read the Lessons, and Mr. W. Lawrence Haggitt played the organ. There was a large congregation, which included nurses in uniform from Wellington Hospital and the Alexandra, St. Helens, and Karitane Hospitals, members of the Registered Nurses' 'Association, and representatives of the Nursing Division of the Health Department and the Plunket Society.

Although, said Mr. Blanchard, Florence Nightingale's venture in the Crimean War made her a national figure, it was ,only an episode in her life's story. "The question is not whether a thing is done for the State or the Church," she used to say, "but whether it is done with God or without God." Nothing was more greatly needed today that this sense of vocation in all dapartments of human activity. The true meaning of Florence Nightingale's life and work was grasped only in the light of that central inspiration.