PARTY FOR NURSES

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 55, 3 September 1945, Page 8

PARTY FOR NURSES

LADY NEWALL MEETS POST-GRADUATES

The 43 post-graduate nurses from all parts of New Zealand who are to finish their course in Wellington on September 28, were entertained by the New Zealand Nurses' .Christian Union at a party at the nurses' home, Wellington Hospital, on Saturday afternoon. The guest of honour was her Excellency. Lady Newall, who was presented with a beautiful bouquet of cyclamen, freesias, and anemones. The official guests were Miss M. I. Lambie, 0.8..E, Director of the Division of Nursing, Miss I. Willis, 0.E.E., matron-in-chief of military nursing services, Mrs. H. Bayldon Ewen, president of the Nurses' Christian Union, Mrs. Tythe Brown, vice-president, and Miss B. Clark, matron of the Wellington Hospital. Her Excellency was received by Mrs. Bayldon Ewen, Miss Lambie, Miss Clark, and Mrs. Tythe Brown. Mrs. Bayldon Ewen said the party was always a high light of the Nurses' Christian Union year and it was a special privilege to have Lady Newall present. Fresh contacts made on these occasions, she said, were never forgotten. The speaker paid a tribute to the work of Miss Willis and Miss Lambie, who had shouldered such a tremendous burden of responsibility during the war years. A total of 650 nurses had been sent overseas from New Zealand, and the task of organising these services, combined with arranging for the care of the sick at home, had been ably managed by them. Miss Lambie thanked the president and executive of the Nurses' Christian Union for the pleasant party and mentioned how much the interest taken by j the union in the post-graduate students was appreciated. As in every other walk of life, she said, a spiritual sense was necessary for success, and the union provided this in the lives of the nurses. NURSES' SHARE IN THE POSTWAR WORLD. "Today we are well met at a time of world events," said Lady Newall. "Peace has come after more than five years of war. Our enemies in Europe and Japan have been vanquished and history of intense interest as being revealed every day. Peace treaties are being signed, readjustment for the future is being planned throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, the Far East, and the Americas. Scarcely a corner of the Pacific, Atlantic, or the Seven Seas is unaffected. Nurses all over the world, just as they share in war experiences, will take their full share in the peace and future of the wor.ld. "Perhaps the island corners of the Cook Islands and Tonga are less affected by world upheavals than any part of the globe,',' said her Excellency. She referred to the special interest Miss Lambie and nurses were taking in child welfare and improved medical services. "It is difficult to realise what a superstition witch doctors and charms have on the minds of the native peoples," she said. "Great patience and perseverance will be needed and improved hospital and dispensing facilities, with wise advice from nurses, will do much to eradicate all the dire diseases and their wrong treatments still prevalent among the native peoples. "There is an old French proverb," she continued, "which says, 'Men acquire acuteness, women are born with it.' Nurses' acuteness is particularly valuable. Intelligence, balanced judgment, right understanding, and service to her patients, to doctors, and to her companions might all be mentioned under acuteness. Nurses are a sisterhood throughout the world for healing and care of the sick and in the cause of humanity. WISDOM IN LEARNING. "We share the English belief that no great and honest effort of mankind can fail in the long run," said her Excellency. "The war has been fought not only for our material possessions, for our liberty, for our independence, and our existence as nations, but also for our character, for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave. How wise you post-graduate nurses are to keep on learning and to realise that new scientific discoveries are constantly being applied in new ways. How wrong the cynic was who said there is nothing new on this earth! There are new and. wonderful discoveries almost every day for everyone of us if we will but keep awake." Lady Newall also mentioned the women's voluntary services in England and spoke of the Dominion and Allied Services Hospitality Scheme there. Matron Clark thanked Lady Newall for her address and Miss K. G. Hall, a returned nurse, spoke briefly on behalf of the post-graduates, thanking the Nurses' Christian Union for entertaining them. Two songs were given by Miss Betty Tucker (Lower Hutt Hospital staff) with Miss Nora Arrowsmith, L.R.A.M., as accompanist. Miss Winifred Poole, one of the post-graduates, gave elocutionary items. The post-graduate nurses, who had each received a spray of violets, were presented to Lady Newall after the serving of tea. The sitting-room of the nurses' home used for the party through the kind permission of Miss Clark was attractively decorated with poppies, baskets of forget-me-nots, daphne, and meadow-sweet, and vases of spring flowers.