LACK OF NURSES

Grey River Argus, 4 June 1943, Page 2

LACK OF NURSES

FOR MENTAL HOSPITALS City Girl Clerks Unsuitable MANPOWER COMMITTEE’S VIEWS. WELLINGTON, June 3. In reference to appeals now 1)©ing made against the direction of young women toi serve as nurses at the Porirua Mental Hospital, a statement setting out the opinion of the Manpower Committee has been issued. The Committee states that it is fully cognisant of the urgent, need of additional staff at mental hospitals, but it is not convinced that the type of directed person—young city girls, all of them clerks, whose ages range from twenty to twenty-four years—is the most suitable type available for the 1 work required of them. In the Committee’s opinion, the class or type of persons required as a nurse at a mental hospital is preferably a volunteer worker inspired bv a liking for the work, or by a sense of Christian duty, or, failing that, a directed person of such- age as to possess mental stability and possessing the qualities of kindness, patience, tact, cheerfulness, and good health and physique. 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 of work, it stated that such prejudice could not bp 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 twenty-one 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 other purpose. The Committee was of the opinion that;’there 1 existed a type of person who was 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 1 the pulpits of all of the churches. The Committee was of the opinion that, as a war measure, there should be established a reserve of workers whose war effort would be that of employment in mental hospitals for a limited! duration. The fixing c definite period for the work, the Committee considered, would overcome much of the present objection, as it would spread the personal sacri fice 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 tvne of directed person coming befor P 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 the expectation of others being found to relieve them at an appropriate time. The Committee added that it was of opinion that mental hospital staff needs should be given priority over almost all other employment, and it would not be sufficient grounds for appeal to merely prove that the worker was doing important work.