BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1949 NEED FOR NURSES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 52, 11 February 1949, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1949 NEED FOR NURSES

Statistics published today following yesterday’s meeting of the Bay of Plenty Hospital Board, read in conjunction with the matron’s statement on the staffing position, emphasise the desperate need for nurses here. Miss Miller has pointed out that, in an institution staffed to handle 50 patients, up to 75 are being treated every day. Result is that staff members are overworked, chronically tired from ’lack of proper rest and recreation. As a consequence even the limited service they are able to give must suffer. Knowing the position, . now that it has been so clearly 'placed before the Board, those who feel they or their relatives and friends have not had the best of treatment might well consider carefully before they voice their not unnatural desire to criticise. Miss Miller and her staff are doing their best, and are making a splendid job of it. But they know, and the Hospital Board knows, that the service is not what it could be in a fully-staffed institution. Within six weeks, one of the difficulties should be overcome when the extra nurses’ accommodation is completed. It is anticipated that that, in conjunction with the recent opening of an old people’s home, will make more ward space available.

That is a desirable end in itself, but the crucial question is this: Where are the nurses coming from? It might be that local girls bent on a nursing career go elsewhere for their initial training, feeling fhat the bigger institutions may give them a better start. That is only true to a limited degree, and there are advantages in training near home that nothing can offset. Miss Miller says, and the Board agrees, that everything they can think of has been done to attract recruits. Yet many vacancies remain unfilled.

The Bospital Board has not hesitated in the past, and is still less likely to hesitate now. when asked to approve anything that will improve this hospital’s training facilities. The tutorial staff, though limited as to numbers, rates high as regards qualifications. Recreational facilities, are good, and the discipline administered with a kindly justice and a realisation of the individual’s viewpoint that might not be quite so easy to achieve in a very much larger organisation. Altogether, the prospects for a young girl intending to makenursing her career are good at Whakatane.

Concerning the usefulness of the occupation, all that can be said ds obvious and generally accepted. It is doubtful if there is any other career in which a woman has the same opportunity to give useful and truly, constructive service to the community. And there is no satisfaction in life comparable to that derived from useful service gladly given. There is no reward for any service comparable with the reward of the gratitude of a fellow being one has helped in sickness or adversity. That satisfaction, that reward, are always added to the nurses’ earninvaluable storehouse of human experience and understanding that mere money could never give.