NATIONAL HOSPITAL WEEK

Evening Star, Issue 21719, 14 May 1934, Page 2

NATIONAL HOSPITAL WEEK

CITY CHURCH SERVICES DR HEWLANDS’S ADDRESS NATIONAL SERVICE OF HEALING National Hospital Week was well observed in yesterday’s church Services. The official morning service was held in St. Joseph’s Cathedral, and the evening one at Knox Church, nurses attending in large numbers. The omission was observed in the customary manner at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. Solemn high mass was celebrated by the hospital.chaplain, the Rev. Father .). Hally, the Revs. V. Douglas and E. Brill being deacon and sub-deacon. The Rev. Father Garvin acted as master of ceremonies, and the administrator, the Rev. Dr Klemiok, was present in the sanctuary. The medical and nursing staffs of the various hospitals were fully, represented, and the Cathedral was.filled to capacity by a largo congregation.. The St. Joseph’s Choir, under Mr C. A. Martin, gave an impressive performance of Gounod’s ‘ Messc Soleucllc.’ The occasional discourse was delivered by the Rev. Father Garvin, who spoke on ‘ The Catholic Church and the Development of tho Hospitals.’ At Knox Church Rev. D. C. Herron conducted the service, Dr R. Fulton read one’ of the lessons, and Dr W. Ncwlands delivered an address, largely on the future of nursing and the ideal of ,a national service. .■“ Of your individual training little need be said,” he stated. “It is, I believe, as good and thorough as it can be in our present state of knowledge. Indeed, it is a question whether your Board of Registration is not aiming at an, unnecessarily high . educational '.standard : both for entrance and for qualification for ■ what may be termed the rank and file of nurses. We cannot all hold I ■■■centurions’ posts where wo ■may-sit .back and. say to others ‘ Come and go.’ That, however, is another story, and it is of the national aspect that I offer some considerations. , “It is universally recognised that the health of a nation, mental :and physical (and I should add, moral), is its greatest asset, and almost every country, Britain more than most, has developed its public health and preventive services; and many diseases, once common, have almost - disappeared.' Think of smallpox, typhus, typhoid, cholera, malaria, yellow fever. In our small dominion we have at least kept in step. We were among the first to have a Nurses’ Registration Act. Our Director-General of Health superintends a hospital and charitable aid system 'that is one of the best in the world; the success of the Society for tho Health of Women and Children, in reducing infant mortality, is universally acclaimed, and there arc departments of school hygiene, including dental clinics, child welfare, and others. . .■—• “ Though this ‘health conscience’ has permeated all civilised hiaiions, we must confess that, we have still fields whose tilling is imperfect and haphazard. Wo know the lessons of the past, but we have failedin their inadequate application. Too much, in community welfare, has been left to individual or small-group effort, and We have far.too ninny independent, and, in some cases, irresponsible agencies whose activities override, and ■ frequently clash. There ( is much dissipation of potential energy: the universal availability of medical and nursing aid to all afflicted, irrespective of payment, is still a dream of the future, and it need not be so. Can wo not create a board of authority of public welfare, so constituted as to be independent of politics and its knavish tricks, to co-ordinate a system covering every community need, with generous measure of local responsibility. Hospital and -district nursing, antenatal and maternity care, child welfare, mental hygiene, care of the infirm aged, and backblock nursing; in short, a complete and efficient community service, wisely correlated., could be given to our people with no •greater cost than that of our public and private expenditure on these objects today. ■ “ Such a service should not be compulsorily free. That is a mistake which one of our most widely-known agencies has committed, and of which, I believe,, it now recognises, the folly. Ability _to pay, however,- should have no bearing on the availability of the. required as-, distance —medical nursing-or other: “ Vested interests may. prove a little difficult, but surely our churches, Red Cross, Order of St. John, Patients and Prisoners’ Aid Society, Plunket Society, Society for Protection of Women and Children, Victoria League could be persuaded to pool their' resources, sinking all ’ personal and private little ambitions and individualities in the greater scheme, and linking up with our friendly societies and the Public Health Department to provide a truly national' service of healing ministration —not administration. “ Perhaps you may say that what I have outlined demands too much of human nature, but lot us entertain the vision, and it may be that even from among,you whom I am how privileged to address will emerge the worker who will make the dream come true. ..“I,take leave to mention here the recent formation of a district nursing scheme in RosJyu which, if wisely guided, as I feel sure it will be, may hold the germ of a national service, founded, supported, and administered by each community for itself, hut linked up with , and under the general guidance of a national authority, under whoso regis all of us, without thought of reward beyond our duo salary, could devote ourselves single-miudcdly as our life mission, and according to our gifts, to this sphere of labour in tho vineyard of Him Who ‘went about doing good.’ ” NURSES’ GATHERING. At the Nurses’ Home on Saturday: afternoon there was a large gathering of nurses. The Chairman of the Hospital Board (Mr W. E. S. Knight), in the comse of a brief address, told something of the history of the administrative block of the hospital, which is shortly to be pulled down. ' Miss Timlin, who returned recently :,-oui a trip abroad, described her york .11 the staff at Pap worth, England, a tuberculosis settlement at which approximately 1,000 sufferers from the disease were treated in accordance with the most modern practice. She also dealt with her experiences on the staff of Brompton Hospital. A musical programme was piovided bv the nurses and Dr James Thomson. "Tho President of the Now Zealand ■Trained ’NfirSes’ Association (Miss Young), who is herself an cx-f)nnedin nurse, returned thanks to the Dunedin nurses for the manner in wiich tho. gathering had been organised.