HOSPITAL UNIFORMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 953, 22 April 1930, Page 10

HOSPITAL UNIFORMS

The Battle of the Skirts has spread to the hospitals and to tho New Horticultural Hall, Vincent Square, Westminster, where recently 3,000 nurses, led by 170 matrons from hospitals throughout Great Britain, made a reconnaissance in force of the twentieth annual nursing exhibition. There were not 30 pairs of uncamouflaged ankles to be seen. Long capes of dark blue and green and brown, V.A.D. mackintoshes, and civilian clothes, were all ankle length. The matron of a great hospital in a northern city declined even to discuss the possibility of short skirts for nurses as a workmanlike and convenient garb. She said: "Nurses have •always worn long skirts. It would be most unsuitable for them to wear anything else.” Another matron said: “Personally, I should welcome a knee-length skirt for my nurses. It is far less cumbbrous, and easier to wash —no small consideration when your laundry list runs into a thousand uniforms a week. But tradition dies very hard, and many people still think that dowdiness is necessary for efficiency. I know I should be condemned at once for saying so, but I think an overall or pyjama suit such as women workers in factories wear would be the ideal garb for nursing.