NURSES IN THE WAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20084, 2 November 1939, Page 4

NURSES IN THE WAR

DEPLETION OF STAFFS SAFEGUARDS TAKEN LIMITED REQUIREMENTS Though a number of nursing staff members at the Cook Hospital have offered their services in connection with the Dominion's war effort, it is not at all likely that there will be anv serious depletion of the present staff, unless conditions change rapidly and drastically.

An assurance to this effect has been received by the Cook Hospital Board from the Nurses and Midwives' Registration Board, the branch of the Health Department which supervises hospital staffing. One nurse from the Cook Hospital, Sister Hall, has been called uo by the Army Nursing Service to take'charge of a military hospital at Burnham, but otherwise there has been no disturbance of staffing arrangements m t'rj wards.

It is understood to be the intention of the registration board to supervise closely the enrolment of nursing sisters, and besides the qualifications of age and physical fitness which are laid down as initial requirements, those permitted to go abroad on active service will be selected so that no one hospital will suffer a serious loss of trained women from key positions.

Experience gained in the Great War is being applied in this direction, and it i.s not intended to repeat the stripping of hospital stall's on this occasion. On the contrary, it is the definite object of the registration board to ensure that there will be no reduction in the training standards of the New Zealand public hospitals; and in order to maintain the training standards there will be no wholesale withdrawal of experienced nursing sisters for war purposes.

This programme may have to be revised later, and some relaxation at least is certain if New Zealand's war effort achieves the comprehensive scale reached in the last war.