A NURSE'S DISMISSAL.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 21 November 1928, Page 6

A NURSE'S DISMISSAL.

LAX DISCIPLINE IN AUCKLAND HOSPITAL. AUCKLAND, Last Night. The case of Nurse E. A. Blackie, wh.> was dismissed from the hospital staff by a special committee appointed by tho Auckland Hospital Board for sending a letter to a prisoner at Mount Etten gaol who had been a patient and in which was an indiscreet reference to the lady superintendent, was- againconsidered by the Board to-day. After a somewhat heated discussion lasting an it was decided that thenurse should appear before the Board at a special meeting next Monday so that the Board might hear wlu-V shehad to say in defence. In a letter to the Board the nurse said: “I think that to have my character and my career destroyed and to be dismissed at a moment’s notice is too severe a punishment for what I have done.” Mr. M. Lairig, a member of the Board, said he did not think it was the Board’s business to whom the girl wrote as long as she did her work In • hi? opinion she should only have been punished for being out late. The chairman (Mr. W. Wallace) said all the nhrses were in the habit of coming in late. Discipline must be maintained. $ Miss Blackie said in her letter thaf . the matron was "going soft.” member: perhaps she meant softhearted (laughter). The chairman added that »the -nurses: were actually getting in throughthe v maids’ quarters and climbing over their beds. If they allowed this it w ould be the end of discipline. , Eegarding the statement of 'Miss Blackie that she had been dismissed without her wages, the chairman said these had not been collected by her 1 * and were waiting for her.

The resolution ■' to hear niirso wa& then carried.