NURSING IN SAMOA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17348, 20 December 1919, Page 9

NURSING IN SAMOA.

TRAINING THE NATIVES.

MISSION SCHOOL STUDENTS.

An interesting account of the training of native nurses in Samoa is forwarded by a New Zealand nurse at Apia. This work was started at the Apia Hospital last year, and there are now five girls taking training.

" The girls are well educated, being students from the Papanta school, conducted by the London Missionary Society," writes the nurse. "Of course, they do not understand English very well, and that was what I found so hard at first; one has to treat them very differently from the ordinary probationer. Being very childish in' their ways they could not understand the hours on duty, and it was quite usual to find them sleeping. One has to give in at first as everything was all so strange to them. " They soon got into the way of hospital life, and now are a great help. They do dressings in the out-patients' department under the supervision of a sister, prepare and cut dressings, and are quite good at preparing the theatre. One need never be afraid of them fainting at any sight, as the more ghastly the sight the more they enjoy it. When a native has an operation the whole family come with him and squat outside the door. Three or four friends used to attend the operation, but now we have got them down to one. The girls attend to the natives in hospital. Each patient is. allowed to have two relations or friends to stay with him. They provide their own food and cook it unless on a special diet, their food being chiefly cocoanut, bread fruit, bananas, taia, and rice. We have' just got beds in the native wards. Before, the natives brought their own mats and slept on the floor, which is the custom here. We have also five native male classes, but the Samoan men are very lazy. Not much work is done by them. " The natives are a very bright and rjjappy people. They spend most of the time singing and having churchthey have it every night after their kai kai (food)one will read a chapter from the Bible, then have long prayers and hymns. They sing most beautifully. I often went round at night just to hear them sing."