COURTESY TO HOSPITAL PATIENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 4740, 20 January 1937, Page 3

COURTESY TO HOSPITAL PATIENTS.

In future patients in the Palmerston N. Hospital will not be greeted merely by their surname when staff members have occasion to speak to them. Instead, they will receive, the title of Mr, Mrs, or Miss, as a preface to their name. This was decided at a meeting of the hospital board on Monday when, after a brief discussion on the matter and. some plain opinions as to what constituted good manners, it was decided to give instructions that the correct title must be used whenever a patient is addressed. 'The question was raised during the discussion. of remits from various hospital boards which will go before the annual conference .in March of. the Hospital Boards’ Association. A remit from the Cook .Hospital Board asks: That the custom of addressing hospital patients by their surnames be discontinued.

“What do they want?” inquired a member immediately the remit

was read. ■ jj The chairman (Mr J. K. Homblow) explained that it was hospital practice for nurses to address a patient merely by the surname. There was a great deal of object tion to this, and personally he thought the practice an ill-mannered one.

,!Np matter who the patient was said the chairman, he should be treated with courtesy and the utmost respect. Hospitals were not exclusive clubs where people might be addressed familiarly by their surnames.

“I have always discouraged the custom, here,” stated the secretary (Mr A. J. Phillipps). “It is an unwritten law here that patients should be addressed as Mr, but there is no general instruction. Mr J. Boyce thought the matter should be rectified without delay. Some of the men were old enough to lie grandfathers, let alone fathers, to the girls. Some of the probationers were very young, and for them to be, able to address their ciders by a blunt surname was rude. Mr Hornblow: If any complaints are received, the probationer concerned will be reprimanded. “Wfhv pick on one if there is no general regulation'?” said Mr J. A. Nash. The secretary said that he had at various times spoken to staff members whom he had heard use the surname, and had pointed out to them the unnecessary * rudeness of the style. The board unanimously passed a motion that henceforth it should be obligatory on the nursing staff to address patients as Mr, Mrs, or Miss.