PRESSING NECESSITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 3, 28 June 1911, Page 5

PRESSING NECESSITY.

BACK-BLOCKS NURSES. LADY ISLINGTON MAKES AN APPEAL. 1 Wellington, Yesterday. "A very pressing necessity of this country is nurses for the back-blocks," declared Lady Islington at the annual meeting of the St. .lohn Ambulance Association last night, Her Excellency made a very telling appeal on behalf of this object. It was, she said, imperative to have a system of supplying nurses from the hospitals who could give attention to people in the remote districts. Schemes were in existence, plans would be matured at an curly date, and she would like to think that there would some day be a chain of cottages all over v Ncw Zealand where nurses would be easily accessible by telepnone and able to go over tracks, i'f not by roads, to the assistance of those in need of skilled attention. It was «ul to read of incn who. through the necessity of undertaking rough journeys, greatly prejudiced their chances of recovery from accident, and she quoted one pitiful instance of a Bettier's child dying through exposure as a result of being carried a number of miles by its father to the nearest hospital where treatment could be given for an illness which turned out to be diphtheria. If there had been a nurse available to look after the child in its own home that sad might have been prevented. It, was our bounden duty to help those brave people, the pillars of our Empire, who by the sweat of their brow had cultivated nature to produce the country's wealth. Lndv Islington apologised for referring at some length to the matter at an ambulance gathering. but she felt that sue must speak of back-blocks nurses in and out of season because the subject was so close to her neari. She had been.struck with the tremendous public-spirited ncss which prevailed in New Zealand, and she hoped to enjoy enough strength and health to help in every -caii-sc had for its object the well-being of her fellow-crca-t.ures.