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New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4813, 20 April 1877, Page 2

Assuming that the public are not wearied of the reiteration of the claims which the I new Hospital has on the general sympathy of the community, and that whatever may tend to advance the financial position of the institution and the power of ameliorating the condition of its inmates will receive kindly consideration, we proceed to offer a few further suggestions which at the period of opening may better secure attention than later on. So soon as the Hospital furnishing is completed, and before the inmates enter, we think it i would be a good plan, for it to be thrown open for public inspection at the rate of Is. per head for admission. This, we believe, would be found to provide a considerable sum, which could be placed as the nucleus of a fund for supplying journals, magazines, pictures and engravings, and other decorations to gladden the eye and mind of tho sick and. convalescent ; and help to remedy the drear monotony of the bare walls, and tho

cheerlessness of the wards, whose olank wall spaces are so wearisome to the patient ; compelled ~to occupy ia bed. of pain or weakness; ." It might also, with the additional donations which may fairly be .expected on'the' occasion of the opening, form the basis! of a fund for supplying .some' pecuniary assistance to convalescent patients who/ on lcaving the' institution, are destitute of means of their- own. Discussion has taken place on the subject ofj-female nurses jfor the Hospital, and itappears to be : the .opinion of some that these should be restricted to female patients, and that men _should..,be_the. attendants in the male wards. We have large- faith in the benefits; which result from the attendance of well-selected and ...well qualified female nurses. - ■ The tender hand of woman is better fitted to smooth the pillow of the sick than is that of the other sex, even if these are imbued with that.Tundness and sympathy that desire to alleviate 1 pain,' which form the true foundation of good nursing qualities. No better attendant on a sick bed could oe found than a woman. As a rule, tlie sex suffer more than men ; they are more patient with affliction in others, and from their idiosyncracy, mental and physical, are more tender and lighter handed, while use and custom donot harden their kindlier instincts. Of course we are not speaking of the nurse of the Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig genus, some of whose descendants. still linger and make sick .j rooms hideous ; but the tender, kindly, careful woman, trained to tlm duty as to mode, and mentally and instinctively qualified for the task. The influence of female attendance at a sick-bed is best appreciated by those who best have known > it. 31any a life has. been saved by the unremitting, self-sacrificing attention of ■women. Nursing is especially woman's vocation, and the best women make the best nurses. What Florence Nightingale did in the Crimea, where she has stood in the hospitals at Scutari twenty hours on a stretch, seeing that the wounded were duly eared for, and the influence she and her staff of nurses exercised in saving many lives, have passed into history, and have left their fruits behind. How the mutual effects "of tender nursing react on the physical condition, and help towards convalesence, every doctor knows. The story of the wounded soldier kissing the passing shadow of Miss Nightingale as it fell on his pillow is an epic in itself. There is annually spent in training superior nurses at St. Thomas's and Kind's College Hospitals in London a sum of £1400, the yearly proceeds of a fund raised by subscription at the close of the Crimean War to enable Miss Nightingale to form a fund for this purpose. The , drift of all this, as our readers will not ' fail to gather, is that a good staff of qualified female nurßes ought certainly to be established for the Hospital.