The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1929 THE STATUS OF NURSES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 813, 6 November 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1929 THE STATUS OF NURSES

AL TSIDE the medical profession, it is generally admitted that a, good nurse is better than a. bad doctor and a dozen druggists. If there be any truth in the admission, then first-class nurses need not be blamed for safeguarding their profession. h>ut it should not be overlooked tbat tliere is a great difference between such protection and the kind of professional jealousy which brooks no sister near the throne.

Registered trained nurses throughout New Zealand are protesting against a legislative, proposal of the Government to allow approved private hospitals to become training centres for probationers who desire to secure full status in the nursing profession. It is not easy to understand or even sympathise with the protest, which is based on apparently weak foundations. One ground of objection, for example, ‘‘is the fear that the inclusion of hospitals run for gain as training institutions will prejudice the reciprocal arrangement New Zealand has with Great Britain.” I hose who thought of that argument had better think again in order to realise how inadequate it is against the Government’s reasonable proposal. It is true that all of the public hospitals in Great Britain are supported by voluntary contributions, but that admirable feature of the British system does not eliminate the fact that the institutions indirectly at least are run for professional gain. Does anyone nowadays really believe tbat doctors and nurses give so much valuable service to hospitals solely for the benefit of suffering humanity? Nobody believes anything of the sort. Doctors themselves would be the first to admit that, while they often have to work hard in hospitals without monetary reward, they could not, lacking such experience, keep abreast of their profession and earn a living. And some of them, particularly in the Old World, have acquired fortune and fame largely because of the outstanding community value of their unpaid service in public hospitals. Like everybody else in professional life doctors have to learn and profit by their initial mistakes somewhere. Nor need it be pretended that all nurses in their great profession are in it and doing splendid work for no other reason than the high motive which animated the supreme nursing sister whose service in the Crimean War really began the art of modern nul-sing. In more recent years, however, the practice of the art has become a profession rather than a voluntary exercise of the spirit of Florence Nightingale. So much can be conceded without depreciating the nobler quality of humanitarian service.

It is foolish to raise the question of gain at all. The real test for registration as competent nurses is ability. And is tliere anyone bold enough or stupid enough to suggest that the standard of nursing or the training of nurses is lower or less dependable, say, in the Mater Misericordias Hospital in Auckland than in the Public Hospital? The same question might well be put in respect of other private hospitals in the main centres of population, and in each case the answer would be similar. If there be doubt about the standard of New Zealand’s most popular private hospitals, let doubters wonder why so many administrators and other people less exalted eagerly seek, when stricken, the service of private hospital nursing. In explaining the purpose of the Government’s Bill, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, as Minister of Health, has confessed that the State is in an invidious position because it permits training of probationer nurses for certificated status in public hospitals which are considerably smaller than some private hospitals. It is right and proper that such inequality should be eliminated. Some private hospitals are larger than several public hospitals not because of being “run for gain,” but simply because the standard of nursing is high.