SUPPLY" OF NURSES.

Evening Star, Issue 15104, 8 February 1913, Page 12

SUPPLY" OF NURSES.

THE SHORTAGE DISAPPEARING. REASSURING FIGURES. ; [Special to the Star.] WELLINGTON, February 8. A shortage of nurses has been for some years the anxiety of doctors and hospital authorities m the Dominion, but a much more satisfactory position has now been reached. The ideal proportion of nurses, as indicated fay the report of the Public Health and Hospitals Department, is one nnrse.to every 1,000 inhabitants. The actual position to-day is as follows: -trained and registered nurses, 1,526; un™t ln m m ’ dvviv , es > 685 ; trained midwives, 454. To show how rapidly the demand for 7 ain^SJ n,dwives has been nle t. the total ioio 19 ?! 7 WaS , 01lly 102 ‘ 0n Mal 'ch 51. IRI2, the number was 416, and no fewer than 77 were added last year, 55 of whom were trained in the Dominion at the St Helens hospitals, the Townley Maternity Home (Gisborne), the Alexandra Home (Christchurch), and the Forth Street Home (Dunedin). _ Some of the New’ Zealand candidates achieved the distinction of earning i 100 per cent, of the possible marks, both in written and practical work, at the recent examinations. Thus the supply of nurses is steadily impioving, and the scarcity which once caused real anxiety is now disappearing. “ There has been a considerable influx of nurses from the United Kingdom, and we don’t find the same diffi- . culty in filling hospital appointments now,” explained the Inspector-General of Hospitals to your representative. “As regards midwives, though we have been short, and we feared that when the Midwives Act came into force we conld not get sufficient trained women to take the place of the old unregistered midwives, there is not much risk of a shortage We admitted 01 trained midwives recently.”