TRAINING OF NURSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20596, 21 June 1930, Page 16

TRAINING OF NURSES.

Sir I have perused with interest the views' o£ some of the medical men who arc advocating the training of nurses in private hospitals. A result not perhaps immediate, but probable in the future, o£ this class of training schools, is two? classes of nurses, one feeling itself supenoiji in social and professional prestige to.the* other This has been tho case in bng-i land, where nurses trained in the yolmH tary hospitals look down upon their tcrs trained in the poor law hospitals, and also is tho case in America. The danger here is that certain people would altowf their daughters to train in private bos* pitals rather than in public as more re fined, and that the spirit of service taC the sick poor, which lies behind the true? nurse's entry to tho profession, will be# lost sight of. No one has alluded to whab is a very serious matter for the trained, nurse at the present time, and more so to the nurse of the future. That is the increase of training schools and consequently the yearly output of qualified nurses far above the needs of the public* The great increase of late years in thoaccommodation of the public hospitals and necessary increase of staffs has absorbed more than the number of suitable candidates for training and there is no opportunity for matrons to weed outthoso who "would do better in other avocations.'. This necessarily affects efficiency of the nursing service, and results in some nurses being qualified who are not suited for a profession which demands many, special qualities. "Why, therefore, add to tho training schools and make the choice of good material still xnore. difficult.) Lastly, it would be more difficult.for tho nurse herself, turned out after her threei or four years' course, to earn her living* At the present, time many nurses are outi of work, 100 in Wellington alone, and this goes on for weeks and months. The case will be worse if a large number oS probationers are trained, and if private hospitals, on which the private nurses depend for special work (all surgical cases being now treated in hospital), train own staffs. It is to be hoped that the Trained Nurses' Association will be given, a3 the Minister of Health has'promised, _ opportunity to consider the bill and any amendments, before it is put before the House, and also that the many leading nurses belonging to the Health Department, now debarred from expressing theiz! views, may take part in its discussion. Hestee Maclean, . Late Director of Nursing.