Swab in Abdomen

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XVI, Issue 3, 1 July 1923, Page 115

Swab in Abdomen

Our readers will be pleased to learn the result of the deferred trial in the action brought against Dr. Frazer Hurst, that the defendant was acquitted of the charge of negligence. Though nurses will all be glad that he won his case, our sympathy is with the late matron, who, though ill at the time, was helping at the operation and had counted the swabs with another nurse. The only explanation of the mistake advanced was that two thin swabs pressed together in sterilising, and with tapes tucked in, had been counted as one. The verdict shows the responsibility in surgical work must be shared by the responsible nurse attending and assisting

the surgeon. Her office being thus magnified and the importance of her work recognised in such legal opinion, there is no doubt she is entitled, more especially when assisting at private cases for which large remuneration is gained by the sungeon, to more than the ordinary fee for nursing cases which do not involve this particular responsibility. This is an argument fora sliding scale of fees for nurses working privately, who at the present time receive exactly the same whether or no they are nursing the most serious and exacting ease or one which is of the lightest description.