CHANGE DESIRED

Hokitika Guardian, 22 September 1931, Page 8

CHANGE DESIRED

HOSPITAL ORGANISATION

REPORT TO WELLINGTON BOARD

WELLINGTON, September 17

Drastic changes, which, it is stated, will alter the whole hospital constitution of New Zealand if adopted, are recommended in the report of a special investigation committee of the Wellington Hospital Board, presented ‘at a meeting of the Board. The report wag received and referred back for further consideration.

In presenting the report, Dr. Begg said that there had been a unanimous opinion that the organisation on the hospital required changing. The question of the future of nursing was one which had given the committee great coricerm. The hospital must, take up the subject as to what was happening to" the nurses they were training. The hospital was practically a nursing university. They had big duties in regard to that. In New Zealand nurses covered every branch of hospital work in three years, hut, in England they covered only medical and surgical work in the same time. A small committee •of ,|he Board should specialise on this subject, keep behind the teachers and nurses, and keep an eye on the future of the nursing profession generally. APPOINTMENTS'. Touching on the question of appointments,, Hr. Begg said that such must have been .a very, difficult question for a lay Board. The committee recommended, a medical council to bring a new scheme into being. After that there would he. a permanent medical council., As to Board control and committee work, the committee considered that better and more, effective work could be carried on by setting up four standing committees with the necessary sub-committees. The committee recommended that a medical committee be set up, also a medical council to make recommendations to the Board concerning medicftl and surgical appointments.

The committee was of the opinion that , sisters in . charge, of wards were too junior, and recommended that the standard of experience required be raised, and that greater responsibility in their own wards be given them; that the salaries of nurses in < training should not be J higher, than in other centres; that probationers be not admitted until' they reached .the age of twenty years; that no pay, apart from board, laundry; and residence, be given for .the first three months, of the, preliminary training.

j A GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT. ! . . in I A majority of the committee recommended that a general'superintendent be appointed, with complete charge of I every detail of the Board’s work, to be a permanent representative, of the Board, with complete,;' responsibility for the management of .all, institutions and activities within. tlje, province of the Board; and that tho present medical, superintendent,lneligible for the position of general superintendent, and . the present secristary eligible for the position;' of assistaiit. superintendi ent.