OUT BACK

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 247, 18 April 1912, Page 7

OUT BACK

THE IPIOMHER SETTLERS. The hardships under which, the pioneer settler in the backblocks labors are often touched upon; hut very (few realise what the women have to put up with. This phase of the question was touched upon by the chairman of the Hospital Board yesterday in his annual report, when referring to district nurses. The appointment of a nurse for the backblocks, he said, was originally in the nature of an experiment. Her headquarters were at Uruti, but on occasion her duties take her over 30 miles from that centre. The experience and reports of these nurses were indeed a revelation of the appalling hardships and sufferings of the women settlers in. the backblocks. ■lt was satisfactory,, therefore, to feel that the Board was the first to make a move in the direction of relieving to some extent these sufferings. It was to be hoped that the success which had attended the inauguration of the system would be widely extended in this and other districts. The great difficulty was in getting to the homes of the settlers, owing to the want of good roads and the bad state of the arterial roads. The Hon, Minster in Charge of Hospitals, on his recent visit, expressed his sympathy with the Imckiblock settlers, and stated 1 that it was the desire of the Government to assist as far as possible in providing facilities for medical and nursing attendance for these settlers. In the chairman's opinion, the real solution of the difficulty 'was good arterial roads, which would 'bring the settlers in the most distant part of the,, restrict to within 2y 2 hours (by mo-o' of the medical men and of the b. ; hospital at New Plymouth. The exp.;' nee of one of the medical staff on a visit to Mokau recently revealed a state of affairs in regard to roads that should not exist in any country which hail been so long open to settlement, and he hoped that this phase of the question would receive the j most careful consideration of the GovI eminent for the time being of the Dominion. An an appreciation of the work of the nurses, the chairman said that Nurse OXTallaghan, who had proved herself a capable and obliging nurse, resigned her position in December last, having held ( the position for fifteen months. Nurse Kennedy was appointed to fill the vacancy, and, like her predecessor, had . given every satisfaction. [