THE NURSES’ HOME.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 March 1922, Page 4

THE NURSES’ HOME.

In the new hostel for nurses attached to the New Plymouth Hospital, not only the district administered by the Taranaki Hospital Board, but the Dominion as a whole, has an asset of which it may well be proud. Those who, possibly without due consideration of all the circumstances, regarded the new building, which was officially opened on Tuesday, as too .elaborate in design and too costly in construction, will do well to take heed of the remarks made at the ceremony by the Minister for Health (Hon. C. J. Parr) concerning the duty of the board to the nursing staff, as well as in relation to the expenditure on building. Briefly summarised, the points emphasised by the Minister were that as the success of a hospital depends mainly on the nurses it was very sound policy, as well as ordinary humanity, that the nurses should be decently housed; therefore expenditure wisely made in their being suitably housed was expenditure of the best kind, and he rejoiced that the board had recognised their duty in this matter. “We have,” stated the chairman of the board, “got the best girls in the Dominion. . . . We have given them the best tve can afford, and they deserve it” —a tribute that was endorsed by Mr. Parr’s statement that “New Plymouth had one of the best nursing staffs in New Zealand”. His point was that if they had good nurses, the people did well to give them such a hostel as he was then officially opening. In the face of testimony carrying such convincing weight, there should be an end of the petty carping at “lavish expenditure on a palatial building”. The building that now awaits the nursing staff of the hospital is a credit to all concerned in every way, more especially as it is a permanent memorial of the humanitarian spirit which actuates the authorities in their work for the sick and suffering, as well as in their care for the health and comfort of the nurses, whose strenuous work, accompanied by the risk of contracting and succumbing to infectious diseases, constitute an undeniable Xdaim to be at least suitably housed when off duty. It must be remembered that the new home, or hostel, is a permanent and not a temporary structure, that should serve requirements for many years to come. Probably it could have been erected for less money had not the war occurred, or had a wooden, barn-like structure been decided upon, to be a standing reproach and eyesore to the community. Happily wise counsel prevailed, with the result that the new home for the nurses is such as it ought to be, and as it will only cost the ratepayers two and a half per cent, on the capital outlay they may well be satisfied with what has been done. That they will feel much pride in this fine building may be taken for granted, for it is certainly worthy of the splendid district it serves. There is, moreover, one feature about this new home that invests it with special sentiment—namely, the memorial hall, which will for all time testify to the splendid lives and noble deaths of those nurses who were victims to the influenza epidemic, as well as of the fallen nurses who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War. There is no danger of those victims in the cause of humanity being forgotten. Yet it is well to honor their memory in such a way that their example will be held up to future generations, and in no way more fittingly than by such a building as the Minister dedicated to the nurses of the New Plymouth Hospital on Tuesday. As the process of expansion proceeds the more will the wisdom of the board’s policy in erecting such a model nurses’ home be justified, and it should bear good fruit in still further enhancing the high reputation the New Plymouth Hospital has earned throughout the Dominion. I