New Year Honours

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XI, Issue 2, 1 April 1918, Page 70

New Year Honours

Auckland Nurses Deoorated

The name of Miss B. Ernest, eldest daughter of Mr. T. Ernest, Campbell Road, One-tree Hill, appears m the New Year Honours list as a recipient of the Royal Red Cross Miss Ernest has been at the front with the Voluntary Aid Division, attached to the Military Hospitals with the British Expeditionary Force on the western front since 1915. She was at the No. 1 General Hospital at Etretat until June, 1916, when she was transferred to No. 2 Stationary Hospital at Abbeyville. Since September last she has been at the Isolation Hospital Calais. Miss Ernest was mentioned m Sir Douglas Haig's despatches on June 7, 1917. The occasion on which Miss Ernest and others of the division received this honour was the first time that the Royal Red Cross has been awarded to members of the V.A.D, Note. — The above extract brings before New Zealand nurses the manner m which the title of nurse has been abused m its assumption by V.A.D. workers. This young lady, excellent as her services undoubtedly have been, is not a nurse, and it is not certain that she has been doing nursing work at all. Nurses do not grudge recognition

of service m the V.A.D. workers, but it certainly is a sore point that so many of these have latterly been awarded the decoration which, from the days of Queen Victoria, has been regarded as the special prerogative of the trained nurses^ We note m a recent Homo journal that the Irish nurses aro indignant at what they term the Li insult " offered to Miss M. Huxley, a prominent matron, formerly matron of Sir Patrick Dunn's Hospital, m Ireland, "m awarding her the second-class Royal Red Cross for her splendid services to nursing m Ireland, while V.A.D. bandage rollers, canteen workers, clinical clerks, society women and others have all been given first-class honours." It is thought that such discrepencies should be brought to the notice of the King, who, of course, m these matters is guided by recommendations from various authorities. Now that the Order of the British Empire is established, surely women workers m the war, other than trained nurses, might be recognised by the award of one of the five grades of this order, and the Royal Red Cross reserved for those for whom her late Majesty Queen Victoria designed it.