DISTRICT NURSING.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XV, Issue 126, 4 May 1925, Page 4

DISTRICT NURSING.

(Contributed). Every town should have nn Association for district nursing. In England district nurses were started at the time of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee and called “Queen’s Nurses,” now they are to no found in all parts of the United King dom. What does a district nurse dof She goes into the homes of the poor sick of all classes and creeds, either by the doctor’s or by friends request. She is a welcome sight! for she knows exact ly how to do her work. She washes her patients, makes them comfortable. Attends to any surgical dressing that I may be needed, leaves instruction about i food and passes on to her next case. In some instances she returns in the evening and makes the patient comfortable. District nursing entails much that is useful in other ways It mey mean that food, firing, and bed clothing is needed. Often a patient will confide in her nurse, especially if she is sympathetic. Sympathy acts as a magnet, and hope and courage may revive in some poor worried mother’s mind. It is necessary to have an office, where minor accidents, ulcerated legs, poisoned and cut fingers can be attended to, and there are many ways that a nurse can advise. It may be, people aro in great distress at a sudden death, and know not where to turn; ring the office and the nurse will come and do the last offices for the dead. Again a nurse can teach the common laws of health, cleanliness and ventilation. It is interesting to see how tho insid.** of a house will clean up and the windows aJ I lowed to remain open, so long as the! nurse is coming in and out. Small! houses and large families with a sick! mother or father, or again a woman or I man may be ill alono in tho house d«» pending on a neighbour for food, or a woman and only small children depend ing on her, may bo sick, these aro some of the difficulties a nurse has to solvo. Christchurch, Wellington, Wanganui, Timaru, Duuedin, all have their district nurse. Wellington and Dunedin ar* crippled by being under St. John Ambulance Association. The public then do not take any responsibility to support a nurse. Neither of these big towns have grown in the work. Think of those town who have no nurse! What about the chronic invalids, turned out of hospital, lying helploss in their own home; friends afraid to touch them, with no knowledge of moving the poor helpless body, lying in one position, afraid to be properly washed for fear of being moved. Added to all this want of nursing, is the inevitable bed sore. It appears first with a broken skin, aggra vated by wrinkles in the bed, on which the poor body is helplessly lying. Thik developcs into a terrible sloughing wound and the poor body suffers more from that, than the original complaint, in fact bed sores have caused dsath. and could have been avoided by proper nursin No one knows the amount of suffer ing there is in homes unknown to th • outside world. All this can be alleviated if the public will only realise the necessity. Nurse Maude, of Christchurch, addressed a public meeting in Dunedin and Timaru in order to help start the work, and would do so anywhere else if re i quired. Let those who have the blessing of i health and strength do their utmost tu move public opinion that relief may be given to such cases of chronic disease as must be in every town.