Massage

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XII, Issue 1, 1 January 1919, Page 43

Massage

It is to be regretted that during the very short session of Parliament this year (owing to the departure of the Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward to attend the Peace Conference), the Bill for the Registration of Masseurs was again po stpo ned . It was re-drafted with some slight amendments, and sent forward to Parliament, but there was no time to consider it, and it has again been shelved. There is, we hope, a good prospect of its being passed next session. The number of persons affected by it is rapidly increasing, and the importance oi massage and electrical treatment for the physical disabilities caused by wounds incurred during the war is so great that a means of distinguishing those operators who have had a proper and sufficient professional training from those who have merely taken up the work without undergoing recognised training is very necessary.

The Military Orthopaedic Hospital now started at the Chalmers block of the Christchurch Hospital is the first centre where really up-to-date teaching in the latest methods can be obtained. The military unit stationed there is composed of doctors who have specially studied the new treatments, and nurses and masseuses who have also been specially qualified in England. The students who recently joined the Defence service after six months at the Otago University, have now been sent for

further tuition and practical experience to this hospital. Here they will work under these doctors and masseuses for a certain period and may then be sent to other centres. There are also twenty-eight students enrolled for military service who will shortly complete their six months' course at Dunedin, and must be drafted to orthopaedic centres for practical work.

Recent reports from England give the following names of trained nurses in the Army Service who have qualified and passed the I.S.T.M. examination : —

Class I. 75 per cent, and over. — Sisters Harris, Brandon, Commons, Makeig, Bennet, Levien, Morgan, Ward. Class 11. 64 per cent, and over. — Sisters Nicholson, Haste, Cherry.

Part I only. — Miss V. Harris. Roll of sisters in training for the Massage Course, starting from the 16/9/18, fqr six months : — Sisters M. E. Gould, M. Mitchell, A. E. Phillpots, S. L. Clark; Staff-Nurses Dora James, M. J. Nixon, K. Scanlon, C. Adams, G. Peter, R. E. Easton, A. J. Whitta.

In connection with the massage class in Dunedin, Miss Knox Anderson, who has been stationed at the Dunedin Hospital for two or three months, and whose duties include the teaching and supervision of the massage students, has been promoted to the rank of sister while acting as instructor.