Shortage of Nurses in the Colonies

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume VII, Issue 3, 1 July 1914, Page 138

Shortage of Nurses in the Colonies

" ' I think that at the hospital we should have really trained nurses, so that people going m there should have the best treatment possible. If we go on permitting our nurses to leave the hospital as soon as they have had some training we shall never have a properly -trained staff,' was the very wise opinion expressed by Dr. MacKenzie at a meeting of the Wellington Hospital, New Zealand, regarding further resignations from their nursing staff."

The above paragraph from an English nursing paper shows how the utterances of members at Board meetings may be misconstrued without knowledge of the circumstances under which such utterances are given out.

One would gather that there is not a trained staff at the Wellington Hospital and that nurses left without completing

their training. This is by no means the case. Out of the nursing staff of about 100 nurses 30 are fully- qualified, some of 10 or 12 years' standing, while even the juniors count four or five years.

After the State qualification by examination at the end of three years, the nurses serve a fourth year before receiving the Hospital certificate.

Naturally, after that time the majority leave for other fields, and so leave room for the new probationers who are m course of time to fill staff positions m their own and other hospitals and to meet the needs of private nursing and Public Health work. Dr. Mackenzie's " wise opinion ' : is the opinion of one who did not consider the meaning of a training school, although he himself must once have terminated his connection with his School of Medicine.