Nurses to strike?

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 4

Nurses to strike?

Posters threatening a strike by student nurses have been plastered throughout Christchurch Hospital. Senior nursing staff said yesterday that they were puzzled about the reason for the posters. However, it is believed that uneasiness among student nurses at the low pass rate in the latest State nursing final examinations is partly responsible. The anonymously lettered posters appeared overnight on Monday. Many have since been removed.

A nurse who approached “The Press” yesterday said that students were worried about the examination results published last week and the lack of response from their superiors to the high number of failures. Uncertain job prospects and the Government trend away from hospital-based training had aggravated the situa-

tion. “It is just going to be a big thumbs down for three years work,” the nurse said. Student nurses did not want to make an official approach because it might jeopardise their chances of being judged “fit and proper” at the end of training. Without that official seal of approval, they could not become registered nurses.

The chief nursing officer of the North Canterbury Hospital Board, Miss B. C. Brankin, said the local pass rate for State general and obstetric examinations was usually comparable or above the national average. This May it had dropped to 7 per cent below’ the national average of 71 per cent.

Fifty-five of the 82 candidates who sat the examination, some for the second time, had still passed.

It had happened before and as then, the Christchurch School of Nursing looked particulaly hard at its methods of selection and training. “We are always concerned if we get even one failure,” Miss Brankin said.

Some student nurses were also “very upset” at failing the examination, but she could see no reason to connect the bad pass rate with the posters. "We cannot treat rhe posters seriously,” Miss Brankin said. “It might just be a hoax.”

The acting principal nurse of Christchurch Hospital, Miss I. Linton, said she was equally mystified by the posters. “It might just he a storm in a teacup,” she said. There was no way of solving the problem, if any, unless an approach was made through official channels.