THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1879.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1740, 17 September 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1879.

While an energetic and judicious Hospital and Charitable Aid Board are bestirring themselves in the direction of rendering the lives of the Hospital nurses as unbearable as possible, a verydifferent state of affairs is obtaining in the old country. Acting on the principle of doing by others as they would not be done by themselves, the Hospital Board has limited the amount of leave to be granted to the nurses to four hours per week. Utterly oblivious of the great strain nursing entails on the persons following that avocation, it has elected to heighten that strain by confining them within the precincts of the Hospital, almost without intermission, from one week’s end to another. Clothed with a little brief authority, the Board is making the best of its time, and is “ astonishing the natives ” —the residents within the boundaries blessed with its supervision—by tho vigor of its rule. The Board has evidently gauged the true value of a good nurse, and if the nurses themselves hardly see the matter in the same light, and if their circumstances admit of their doing so, are leaving the institution, that of course cannot be laid at the door of a humane and far-seeing Board. But, turning to the ©'her side of the globe, what do we find s being done there ? Tho Queen has just inaugurated a new order of merit, confined to hospital nurses in actual work. Hitherto there have been two English orders confined to women, namely the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert and the Imperial Order of tho Crown of India. With regard to the first of these orders, it is not at all clear as to what are its precise objects. There are twelve queens and princesses and twenty-six other ladies on its roll, but, apparently, no qualification but that of rank is required. Tho Imperial Order of the Crown of India was instituted to commemorate tho assumption by the Queen of the title of Empress of India, and its roll is comprised of members of the Royal Eamily, Indian ladies of rank and the wives of high Indian officials. But tho order just instituted is an entirely different matter to either of those. The distinction it confers is far higher, and the road to its attainment is not strewn with roses, as in the two former cases. The Order of St. Katherine’s Nurse is as much an order of pure merit as is tho Victoria Cross or any other order of the same description, and, being conferred by the Queen, it is to bo presumed that the recipient will he entitled to wear tho decoration at Court. It must be allowed that, at present, there are certain objectionable features in the manner of conferring tho distinction, hut these are sure in course of time to bo done away with. For instance, the first three recipients have been all of them chosen from one institution, namely, Lady Stanley’s Training Institution and Nurses’ Home at Westminster. And again, the decoration is to ho hold for three years only, and is accompanied by an extra salary of £SO a year. These conditions will not, we fancy, commend themselves to most people. An order of

moilt once obtained should bo tenable for life, it is only lowered by having a money consideration attached to it, and the field out of which the recipients should be chosen should bo as wide as possible. But the intention of duly honoring a noble and self sacrificing profession remains the same, and the details connected with the carrying out of the intention will, naturally, in due course of time, be satisfactory arranged. Since the day that Miss Florence Nightingale may be said to have raised the profession of hospital nurse to its true status, and to have laid the foundations on which were afterwards formed the Rod Cross Society and the Genova Convention, philanthropists and far seeing men have been anxious to do honor where honor is in reality due. In New Zealand there are as yet no institutions based on tho same principles as as those which in England send out into the world highly cultured and refined women, willing, nay eager, to sacrifice their comfort, and, more than probably, their lives, in the service of suffering humanity. It is indeed not at all evident that such institutions are at present a necessity. The press of population is not heavy here, and the amount of absolute distress is small, oven in comparison with the population, to what it is England. Nor in bringing the action of tho English Government before our readers are we, in any way, pointing to tho desirability of exceptional honors being granted to the nursing profession. But it is well that the public should recognise what is now considered the true status of this profession. Our worthy Hospital and Charitable Aid Board have very vague ideas on the subject. They do not seem aware of the fact that hospital nurses are, at great personal risk, waging a constant war against disease and death, that their duties are as responsible as, and more onerous than, those of medical men, and that such being the case they should be treated with all possible consideration. It is not necessary that the discipline requisite for the hospital should be relaxed—that should lie in the hands in the authorities in charge—but for the Board, in the plenitude of its comprehensive humanity, to pass a regulation which would be sure to drive in course of time all really good nurses out of the institution, is a matter that cannot be passed without comment.