GIRLS FOR STAFF

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21112, 4 June 1943, Page 5

GIRLS FOR STAFF

MENTAL HOSPITAL TYPES NOT SUITABLE COMMITTEE'S ATT ITU DE (P.A.) WELLINGTON. June 4. Reference to the appeals now being made against the direction ol young women to serve as nurses at the Porirua Mental Hospital is made in a statement setting out the opinion of the man-power committee. The committee states that it is fully cognisant of the urgent need of additional staff at mental hospitals, but is not convinced that the type of directed person—young city girls, all of them clerks whose ages range from 20 to 24 years—is the most suitable type available for the work required of them. In the committee's opinion the class or type of person required as a nurse at a mental hospital is preferably a volunteer worker inspired by a liking for the work or a sense of Christian duty or, failing that, a directed person of such age as to possess the mental stability and possessing the qualities of kindness, patience, tact, cheerfulness and good health and physique. Psychological Factor The committee also referred to the psychological factor and. while agreeing that prejudice against working in a mental hospital was partly due to ignorance of the conditions oi work, stated that such prejudice could not be dismissed with a wave of the hand. To direct a person with a horror of the work might amount to mental cruelty and might well be attended by tragic consequences should a female person under" 21 years be directed against her will to employment, as a nurse in a mental hospital, and the committee felt that the mental hospital authorities erred in supposing that the hospitals could be permanently staffed by the direction of persons under the industrial manpower emergency regulations. Those regulations were designed as a wartime measure only and the committee would be sorry to see them used for any other purpose. Securing Suitable Types

Tlie committee was of the opinion that there existed a type of persons much more suited to mental hospital work than were the girls under direction If the registration age were extended, there would be less difficulty in locating a suitable type. Another means of securing them would be to make appeals from the pulpits in all churches. The committee was of the opinion that, as a war measure, there should be an established reserve of workers whose war effort would be employment in mental hospitals for a limited duration. In fixing a definite period for the work, the committee considered that it would overcome much of the present objection as it would spread the personal sacrifice called for over a larger number. The training of a larger number would be involved, but there should also be an increased number who would elect to remain at the work after the period fixed. Although the type of directed person coming before the committee was not considered to be completely suitable, some of them had to be directed, but those whom the committee saw fit to direct would be directed for a specific period of six months in expectation of others being found to relieve them at the appropriate time. The committee added that it was of the opinion that mental hospital staff needs should be given priority over almost all ether employment, and it would not be sufficient grounds for an appeal merely to prove that a worker was doing important work.