Registration of Nurses at Home

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XVI, Issue 3, 1 July 1923, Page 105

Registration of Nurses at Home

There appears to be some misunderstanding in regard to the duration of the registration of a nurse, and in a receni nursing paper we see that the General Nursing Council of England and Wales is to obtain legal opinion "as to whether a nurse whose name has been removed from the register because she has not paid her annual subscription can call herself 3 registered nurse." The argument that the payment of the yearly registration fee is necessary for the retention of a nurse's name upon the register appeal's to us a most unjust and shortsighted one. Surely once a nurse has qualified for registration by undergoing the necessary training and passing the prescribed examination she is a duly qualified and registered member of the profession of nursing. it is provided in the various Acts 01 rules which have been passed in Great Britain and in the Dominions that a nurse's name may be removed from the register on account of an indictable offence or misdemeanour or misconduct. How, then, can the omission of the pay ment of half-a-crown a year be an equal cause of removal from the register? Surely, apart from the copy of the register, which should be published annually, there must be kept the main register in which as they are accepted the applicants for registration are entered and from which

the annual register with corrected addresses, altered names by marriage, and, under our New Zealand system, additional qualifications and experience and appointments are added, is made up for publication. This is an alphabetical register, and should be the working one for the information of the public; and from its pages it is quite a fair thimg that the name of a nurse failing to pay her annual subscription should be left out. AVe do not think that, under any Act for the registration of members of a recognised profession, the names of those who have once been accepted as propei'ly qualified are removed for the trivial cause of non-payment of a yearly fee. The reason should be of a very grave character, otherwise there is no distinction between mere carelessness and criminality. On perusal of Part Tof the rules under the Act, we find under "Fee for retention in "Register" that the Avord " published'' register is used, and we consider that the intention of the framers of this rule is merely that the nurse's name may be removed from the publication of that year but will remain on the main register. A nurse once registered should, therefore, unless removed under Part V of the rules on account of conviction of a felony, misdemeanour, or other specified reasons, still be entitled to call herself a registered nurse.