Nurses and Drug-Taking

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1012, 1 July 1930, Page 12

Nurses and Drug-Taking

POLICE OFFICER’S INNUENDO

Indignation at the Hospital

WHEN .Senior-Sergeant Wat vestigate “.in tlie belief 11 in New Zealand supplying pe ended in the conviction with hospital nurse. instead of laving* bare the drug traffic, the senior-sergeai is none. Moreover, his remar! strongly resented throughout turned a beehive in Auckland “Slipping” physically through over- 1 work, a nurse at Gisborne took morphine sulphate and was convicted and discharged. In prosecuting, Senior-Sergeant Wade said lie had been told that practically every nurse in New Zealand carried supplies ot' the drug, though it was an offence to do so. “Of course,” continued the seniorsergeant, “they are not all addicted to it, but if the effects of the majority ot nurses, particularly those attending outside cases, were searched I have no doubt that bigger supplies of the drug would be found than that which defendant had in her possession.” INDIGNATION AT HOSPITAL Auckland nurses are very indignant about it; The lady superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, Miss A. M. Nutsey, said so this morning when asked if the nurses under her charge really were drug addicts. “Those allegations are absolutely untrue,” said Miss Nutsey with great emphasis—“they are absolutely false.”

been nursing at the hospital she had known of only two cases in which nurses had resorted to drugs. The statement of Senior-Sergeant Wade was very wrong. Nurses carrying about large quantities of morphine—that was ridiculous. Miss Nutsey made it clear that supplies to nurses were strictly regulated. When she was in private nursing she always had to obtain the drug through a doctor —as much as she needed and no more. An2 L* the hospital today all dangerous drugs were checked by a trained nurse, none going astray. “Those false statements oUght to be refuted —our reputation is at stake,” Miss Nutsey said in a manner which left no doubt that she was pleased to be able to say something to put her nurses on side again, if the public had been led to believe that all was not well. GROSSLY EXAGGERATED Next, Dr. C. E. Maguire, medical superintendent of the Auckland Hospital. “This is very grossly exaggerated,” he said. “In all my experience I’ve not known of nurses carrying about these quantities of drugs that, the police allege. In country districts nurses have to carry more than others, I suppose, but the restrictions are so stringent that l don’t see bow they could get hold of tlie quantity the police sergeant suggests.” Dr. Maguire had not known cf nurses using morphia or any other drug when run down to keep them going; neither had he experience of dismissal of nurses, not for a very loug period, as a result of drug habits. What medical men he had spoken to this morning ridiculed the whole thing. Miss Todd Smith, immediate past president of the Auckland Trained Nurses’ Association, hoped that there was nothing in Senior-Sergeant Wade’s innuendo. She had moved among nurses for years, but had only heard of isolated cases of nurses taking to drugs. “Do you know of any instance of a nurse being dismissed for habitually taking drugs?” was a, question Mrs-. Tracy Tnglis, a vice-president of the Trained Nurses’ Association, was invited to answer.

ie, of Gisborne, set out to inat possibly there was a depot jple with drugs” his inquiries jut penalty of one person —a inner secrets of a widespread h, has had to admit that there ;s about nurses and drugs are the country and he lias over- “ Not for 20 years.” Mrs. Tracy Inglis remarked. In declaring that the senior-sergeant’s implication ought to be refuted that drug-taking among nurses was more common than the public believed, she said that to her knowledge the practice was very rare indeed. WHAT CHEMISTS THINK The attitude of a number of city chemists was that the senior-sergeant had raised a stupid scare, which his subsequent watering-down did not wholly remove.’ They refused utterly to countenance his implication that there were subtle goings on in the nursing profession, as far as the use of drugs was concerned. The general view was that sinister and confirmed drug fiends existed only in the imagination of the zealous senior-sergeant. Mr. W. H. McKinney, president of the Northern Pharmaceutical Associa- ! tion, remarked that he had not heard I of nurses trying to buy drugs. The ! law was that supplies could be ac- ; qulred only by order of a medical man. That was all there was to it. j “Have you ever heard of a nurse drug addict?” was a straight question put to Mr. McKinney. He certainly had not —in Auckland, anyway. The sale, of drugs was carefully regulated by law and responsible chemists up* ! held that law. Mr. McKinney observed that it \ seemed to him that the senior-sergeant was “talking through his hat.”