SUPPLY OF NURSES.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13644, 8 February 1913, Page 4

SUPPLY OF NURSES.

THE SHORTAGE DISAPPEARING,

REASSURING FIGURES

(Special to "The Colonist.")

Wellington, Feb. 7.

A shortage of nurses has been for some years the anxiety of doctors and hospital authorities in the Dominion, but a much more satisfactory position has now been reached^ The. i<Soal proportion of nurses, as indicated by tho report of the Public Health and Hospitals Department, is one nurse to every 1,000 inhabitants. The actual position to-day iV as- follows : Trained and registered nurses, 132G; untrained midwives 685, trained mid-wives 494. To show how rabidly the demand for trained mid-wives has-been met, the total for 1907, which was'only 102, is interest, ing. On March 31st, 1912 the number was 415, and no fewer than 77 more were added last year, 55 of whom were trained in the Dominion at tlie St, Helen's Hospitals, the Townley Maternity Home (Gisborne), Alexandra Homo (Christchurch), and Forth street Homo (Dunedin).... Some of the New Zealand candidates achieved the distinction of earning 100 p_er cent of .the possible I marks, both in written and - practical ; work at the recent examinations.

. Thus the supply of nurses is steadily improving, and the scarcity which once caused' real anxiety is now disappearing. "There has been a considerable influx of nurses from tho United Kingdom, and we don't find tho same difficulty in filling hospital appointments now." .explained tho Inspector-General of Hospitals to your representative. "As regard mid wives, though we have been short, and we feared that when th^ Mid\rives- Act came into force we could u-ot get; sufficient trained women to take the.place of the old unregistered •midwives, there is not much;, ri.sk of shortage. We admitted' 57 trained mii wives recently."