APPEAL FOR NURSES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1942, Page 3

APPEAL FOR NURSES

MANY MORE NEEDED

An appeal for more nurses was made by Dr. J. Cairney, superintendent of the Wellington Hospital, when speaking at a gathering held in the nurses' home for the purpose of presenting medals to nurses who had passed their final State examination. Hospitals, he said, were an essential part of the war effort, and the nearer the battle front came to our shores the greater would be the part they would be called on to play.

At present there were so many openings for young women that there was a danger of the established vocations being overlooked, he said. The Hospital Board was extending its bed accommodation. Service requirements made it imperative that that should be done quickly. More nurses were needed. Instead of classes of #30 nurses entering the preliminary training school, classes of 60 were now needed to build up the strength of the staff. The career of nursing was open to girls of 18 years and over. It offered not glamour, not glory, not even an attractive outdoor uniform, but it did offer a student career full of interest, a sound professional education, financial reward as good as elsewhere, and numerous opportunities after graduation. New Zealand had no military hospitals, and more and more in the future existing hospitals would be called on to care for sick and wounded returning from overseas as well as patients from camps in the Dominion. Other speakers were Mrs. Knox Gilmer, who presided, Miss Lambie, director of the. Nursing Division, and Miss Willis, director of the Army Nursing Section. Miss Willis presented the Payne Memorial Medal to Miss Rona Clarke.. Dr. Cairney said that of tile 24 candidates for the State final examination, 23 had secured complete passes, five with honours. There were two honours in medicine, one in surgery, and two in nursing. He paid a special tribute to Nurse Ellison; two years ago she had won the essay competition arranged by the Registered Nurses' Association and open to students in all training schools and recently she had won the poster competition for the recruitment of nurses, conducted throughout the Dominion by the "New Zealand Nursing Journal." Dr. Cairney also expressed satisfaction with the results obtained by the preliminary State class in its examination. The number of passes, .he believed, exceeded the average in the Dominion.