CHAUFFEUR-NURSE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12760, 2 October 1919, Page 9

CHAUFFEUR-NURSE.

She had driven an ambnlance during the war and was an expert chauffeur, but she found it difficult <to get a post as a demobilised worker. Very rightly, employers wore giving the preference to discharged soldiers, and like many women drivers she was now out of work. I met. her the other day. looking delightfully well and happy m a now position of which she gave me the fullest details-, "lam a chauffeur-nurse to a doctor," she said. "It was my own idea- 1 advertised in the medical papers and in others that- I -would be willing to drive a car for a medical man and act. as his personal assistant when needed. s "You see,'* she went on. "T took my home nursing aud first-aid course Site every woman in 'l4, and it occurred to me that, a busy country doctor might find it useful to bo ablo to count on a lonian chauffeur, for help in emergencies. It wasn't my intention to compete with the trained village; nurse, but it seemed to me that in ease of accidents or in sudden calls In illness I might he useful to the doctor and be able in help liim at a time when it was impossible to get in touch -with the nurse. "And so it has proved. My job is right away in the country. seven_ miles from a station, and my doctor is the only medical man in the district. Often ho has to bo driven ten miles over rough country to see a patient. Well, it -would be poor economv to take the nurso away from her duties in the village to attend to an isolated case which was not serious, but in my capacity as driver I have to be with the doctor, and my knowledge of dressings and bandaging and so on has been helpful to him and to his patients. " In the country often have to do without the trained nursing which would be available in town, and anyone who knows the elements of nursing is a godsend. In a simple operation or emergenor almost any doctor would be grateful for aa. esV.AJ)., always Fupposmg. of course, that a trained nurse was not on. the spot " I have fonnd mv nost immensely interesting, and I think many women who were employed as chauffeurs' during the war, and who cannot now easily get work, might adopt my idea with' advantage to themselves and without, detriment, to the discharged soldier." _ .... —B.D., in the " I>airy Mail."