DISTRICT NURSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23671, 1 December 1938, Page 12

DISTRICT NURSES

WORK DURING MEASLES EPIDEMIC HIGH PRAISE FROM MEDICAL OFFICER (Special to Daily Times) WELLINGTON, Nov. 30. The work of district nurses in the densely-populated urban areas of Wellington during the recent measles epidemic was highly praised this evening by Dr F. S. Mac Lean. medical officer of health, Wellington, addressing 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. Dr Mac Lean said. In addition to ordinary bedside attention to patients, at the request of the department the district nurses had carried out valuable prophylactic work, ensuring that children who had been exposed to infection were injected with serum which, if it did not actually prevent their having measles, at anv rate induced a mild 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 vears who would otherwise have been very bad risks. All were from crowded areas. All either escaped infection or were subject to very mild attacks, except in a single case where complications ensued. Among the 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, Dr Mac Lean said. The nurses had the satisfaction of knowing that their work had almost certainly prevented a number of serious cases of measles and possible deaths. He wished to thank the nurses through the guild on behalf of the Department of Public Health.