A TRIBUTE

Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1938, Page 5

A TRIBUTE

' TO DISTRICT NURSES. (Per Press Association—Copyright), WELLINGTON, Dec. 2. The work of district nurses in the densely-populated urban areas of Wellington during the recent epidemic of measles, was highly praised this evening by Dr F. S. Maclean, Medical offier of Health, at Wellington, in an address at the annual, general meeting of the .District Nursing Guild of St. John. The work of the nurses had been instrumental in preventing the epidemic from assuming a more serious aspect than it had done, said Dr Maclean.

In addition to the ordinary bedside attention to patients, at the request of the department the district nurses carried out valuable prophylactic work, ensuring that children who. had been exposed to infection were injected with serum which, it it did not actually prevent their having measles, at any rate induced an attack of the disease in a much less virulent form than it would otherwise have assumed. Some 50 children had been injected. They were all young children of under five yeai’s who would otherwise have been subjected to very bad risks. All were from crowded areas and either escaped infection or were subject to very mild attacks except in a single case where complications ensued.

Among older children from the. same districts who were not injected, there were a number of serious cases with

complications and in some cases pneumonia. During that period about 20 deaths had occurred altogether in Wellington. The nurses had the satisfaction of knowing that their work had almost certainly prevented a number of serious cases of measles and possiblel deaths. He wished to thank the nurses through the guild for the Department of Public Health.