HOSPITAL NURSING.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3625, 23 August 1901, Page 4

HOSPITAL NURSING.

The following are the passages in the report of the Inspector of Hospitals, „re- ' ferred: to by the chairman of xthe South, Canterbury Hospital Board at; the meeting on Tuesday:— - „-A further evil, which seems inseparable > •- from our system of local government, is the •unjustin'able*- interference of- .hospital trustees in the selection of probationers and the promotion of nurses. The matron and the medical officer, if they are at all fit for their positions, are responsible for the efficient nursing of the hospital, yet members of Boards combat their recommendations, insist on the appointment and promotion of friends of their own; the consequence is that too often the sisters or charge nurses are not of the best type. -Promotion has come to many of them by mere seniority,- though they lack the qualities that would make them successful outside the hospital. Satisfied with their pay and position, they remain on, growing hard and mechanical in their work and feeling. Year by year they take less interests in the stream of juniors passing through their wards, are more and more disinclined to spend their time and energy in the careful teaching of what and how to observe, how best to relieve minor discomforts, and to cheer and sympathise with their patients. In other words, , they either cannot or do not- really train each new probationer. A ward-sister's main duty is not to do the work herself, but to teach others how to do it, arid this capacity, or the lack of it, ought to be the chief element in. determining promotion. This consideration ought to deter every self-respecting hospital trustee from meddling with things he cannot possibly • understand, and make him leave all such - matters to the responsible officers, who - alone can estimate the qualifications required. Besides these incipient evils which are beginning to afflict the nurses' profession, there are others calling loudly for a remedy. It is only in'our larger hospitals that it has been .found possible to give any systematic-training to'nurses, or to provide any satisfactory way of testing and certifying to their efficiency by examination. In many hospitals not merely are the probationers not properly taught,. but there is a positive tendency, which is encouraged on -the score of expense, to have as many probationers as possible, who get no pay for a period, and often ao regular instruction. The result is such an output of so-called hospital-trained nurses that the profession is nearly swamped with them. They call themselves private nurses, though they in many cases have no certificate, and could not pass any kind of an examination. Doctors too heedlessly introduce such, persons into the nomes of their patients, where they are quite unfit to exercise the most ordinary ofi a nurse's duties. They know nothing about nursing, but they add a new and very real, as well as costly, terror to illness and death. They will cannot cook anything towards the snot .comfort tu~ re chiefly remarkable for .tients; "'*""' ~*V_,. "~ for having every- . their incessant d«aana» _ ' -i. j -» ii_ and are P 1 swn -* ca?es Jwdy-.wait on them, ajla . , . , «, iverv dangerous W any household. TEr"trust no one will imaging that I am V.the.least forgetful of the nobltf Qualifies 1 'd -.services, both in hospitals and private ar. <xi£e, of our really qualified nurses, pra -whom, as \t. body. none befcter can than . -nil .anywhere- ovi 7 object has be fot i call attentK' ll " to obvious evils, been tc \ tbw to ranea ial legislation; and with a 'j£:that- I wik* have the support lam cert; hv -of every fe enninely-qualified and sympat > colony. 1 e Government nurse* in' tht a Sill for the' State re^stra ' nave prepared *- d , the e j e ct will be._ tion of nurses, > at to an or-a " I " sat "™ ° l if it passes, to 1c .-qualified. x2e " aii who are proi

names 'will be annually published by the State. This is the only method by which the nursing profession can be placed in such a position as will enable it to, remedy the evils- -which are rapidly invading it, and secure the advantages and public confidence which it so felly deserves. No interference whatever is intended with the right of every person to employ whatever nursing he may desire. The State limits itself to giving a reliable list of nurses properly trained and tested by State examinations.