CONTROL OF NURSING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 17 July 1925, Page 5

CONTROL OF NURSING.

HEALTH MINISTER’S BILL. REGISTRATION BOARD PROPOSED. FROM OUR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER. WELLINGTON, July 16. The Nurses and’ Midwives Registration Bill, introduced by th© Minister for Public Health (Hon. Maui Pom are), provides a complete scheme for controlling their qualifications, maintaining an official register and setting up a registration board, comprising the Director-General of Health, the Director of the Nursing Division, a registered medical practitioner, and two registered nurses recommended by the New Zealand Trained Nurses’ Association. Persons entitled to registration must have had three years’ approved training as a nurse, have undergone a course of theoretical and practical instruction, and have passed the examination prescribed by the Act. Holders of the certificates of equivalent value from authorities outside New Zealand may he registered. . There are to be separate registers for nurses and midwives. The Minister for Public Health is empowered to establish State maternity hospitals for training maternity nurses. Medical Officers of Health are to have general supervision of nurses, with power to suspend them from practise if desirable in order to prevent tho spread of infection. Per. sons unregistered who practice or describe themselves as registered nurses are liable to a fine of £2O. A medical practitioner may give authority to an unregistered person to act as a maternity nurse if he js willing to accept the resnonsibilitv, having regal’d to welfare of the prospective mother and child. It is proposed that the Act operate from January 1, 1926.