WHAT A NEW ZEALANDER NOTICES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 3 December 1927, Page 11

WHAT A NEW ZEALANDER NOTICES

LETTER FROM A NURSE IN LONDON. A New Zealand girl now nursing m London writes to a Hastings friend.. ‘ ‘ Thank you so much for the Plunket report. My nurse friends enjoyed reading about the Karitano and Plunket work. Most of them heard Sir Truby King when he was in London, and thought he was wonderful. There is a big home in London run on the Karitane lines. There are numerous infant welfare centres, where the mother receives advice and the baby is weighed, etc., but as far as I know they are not quite on the Plunket lines —at anyrate not as regards ths feeding. 1 think these centres are used only by the lower working-class. Their homo conditions do not tend greatly towards health or cleanliness. My work takes me a great deal among them as a nurse for the London County Council, and I have learned much about their mode of living. Large families live and sleep in one room, and if it happens to be at the top of a house with four floors, and the one and only water tap is on the first floor, then any chances of the children getting a wash more than once a week is pretty small. There are always a number of families on each floor. It is a wonder that the children look as healthy as they do. I can only put it down to the fact that they are running round the streetsfrom early morning till late at night, and in that way getting all the fresh air possible in that part of our dear old stuffy London. ”