THE NURSING PROFESSION

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 58, 2 December 1926, Page 13

THE NURSING PROFESSION

WHY THIS NEGLECT?

(By

Agnes Innes)

Tho New Zealand Nursing Association through its central council has appealed for financial assistance for nursing education. The request has been refused. The Otago University says it has not the means, and the Government - disclaims obligation. A comparatively modest sum, tor salaries of instructors, is the/immediate need, which need is to establish post graduate courses for nurses requiring special training for executive and teaching and public health positions. And there is no money for this worn. The educational needs of the chilu, primary and secondary are cared for—the subnormal physically, and the mentally defective, even tho delinquent. There are bursaries for the medical student, the dental student, and provision for the training of school teachers. The nurse student alone is denied facilities for extending kbr knowledge. For nursing education alone no preparation of teachers is provided. The nurses who wish to be equipped for public health service, or for a tptorial position must go overseas for secondary nursing education. Those who can afford to do this are few and far between, thus the hospital training schools are unable to obtain enough tutor-sisters. This has been the status for a considerable time, and now the central council of nursing regards the position as a grave menace to the standard of nursing in New Zealand. It is obvious that if nothing is done our nurses, so long in the van of nursing progress, must fall behind their sisters in more favoured countries. So keenly are the nurses feeling this that from themselves has come an offer to subscribe part of the required funds. Even this hope has been disappointed—the Government cannot subsidise such a fund. Yet surely the nurse has a right to an adequate preparation for her snecialiscd work. The demand for the skilled, specially trained nurse becomes more and more insistent. With the forward march of medical science the allied service of nursing must progress—or else the modern benefits of the former fail to reach their purpose in full measure. In their urging of their claims for more nursing education the nurses are but appealing for the community they serve—for the siek and the whole for' the latter, too. should come more and more under their beneficient care in Pl Bfow t trulv < they say In their "Song of the Nurses”: "We are the last outposts upon the earth, / Guard'to'’ the line where life meets death." . „ . , Must these women of all who seels more education, alone he denied? Tills is a hitnl question. Will the answer eontinne to be: "Thera is no provision for financing nursing education .