NURSING CONDITIONS IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18544, 18 August 1928, Page 2

NURSING CONDITIONS IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS.

To the Editor. Dear Sir, —As one who has had a daughter trained in one of our public hospitals, and two nieces trained in other hospitals in the Dominion, and as one who has come a good deal in contact with our public hospital nurses during the past five or six years, 1 confidently state that if our hospital nurses felt absolutely free to unburden their souls as to their experiences the general public would be astounded! The trouble is due, in the main, to the understaffing of the nursing department. As a rule, no provisipn worth mentioning is made for a staff of relieving nurses, and consequently nurses are often (when in very indifferent health from overwork) worked to a state of almost complete prostration. I do believe that the medical superintendents, and even the matrons, are kept, too often, in complete ignorance of a great deal regarding the work of the wards and the arduous duties imposed on nurses (and more especially on the junior trainees) by those immediately over them. 1 have discussed the matter with a large number- of nurses, and I have no hesitation in affirming that, apart from the fact that almost all nurses are (as a general rule) overworked, the treatment accorded nurses in some of the wards (more particularly in wards in which the risk from infection is great and very serious) is too often tactless. I should like some member of Parliament to ask for a return from all our public hospitals showing the number of nurses admitted during the past five years after medical examination as trainees who (1) Contracted tubercular trouble, and (2) broke down in health and had to abandon their profession. If what I hear freely discussed among nurses is true (and I cannot doubt it), there is something radically rotten in the state of. our unhospitable hospitals. No doubt from the general tone prevailing in the yards—if not in the whole institution-—there is great reluctance on the part of nurses, even when they feel far from fit for duty, to “report” themselves ill. This is partly due to their knowing that the nursing department is understaffed (and that no nurse can be spared) and partly to their (rightly or wrongly) entertaining a suspicion that they may be regarded as malingerers, o t that they mav be pronounced misfi.ts in or unfits for the profession. I am convinced that it is high time that the

conditions under which the nurses in our public hospitals are called upon to work should be thoroughly investigated bv some competent tribunal. I write as one whose niece (as strong and healthv a woman as could be found in any community) contracted tubercular trouble in one of our larger public hospitals, and died shortly after completing her training. Dr Fox. of Christchurch, last September wrote to his Hospital Board: “Most of the sickness I believe to be due to the overcrowded condition of the wards, which l warned your committee two months ago would L>e followed by illness in the staff.” The warning was not only ignored, but the chairman of the Hospital Committee, in excusing the overwork which fell on the nurses, who were not ill, said that the board could not keep a large staff for emergencies of that kind. I confidently assert that very much the same conditions prevail in many of our public hospitals. Testimonials as to the kindness and consideration shown to nurses by matrons, sisters, staff nurses, or even by members of the medical staff, are valueless. It would require the courage and nerves of an Amazon to refuse to sign such a testimonial. I write in the hope that this letter may catch the eye of members of Parliament.—l am, etc., PARENT. Wellington, August 17. J