SERVICES RECOGNISED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 January 1939, Page 7

SERVICES RECOGNISED

MISS CECILIA McKENNY. FINE RECORD IN NURSING PROFESSION. A long record of service to the nursing profession in New Zealand was recognised in the New Year honours, when Miss Cecilia MeKenny was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Miss Cecilia MeKenny, M.8.E., was born at Oharui, near Wellington, and received her early education in Wellington. When still quite young she came to this district and was engaged for some little time in pupil teaching at the Pahiatua and Mangatainoka Schools. She then took up nursing and received her early training in the Wellington Public Hospital, where she was engaged for eight years. She then went to the Wanganui Public Hospital as matron, a position which she held for more than 20 years. During the Great War she was for a time in the hospital ship Maheno. At the conclusion of her hospital service, Miss MeKenny represented the New Zealand Trained Nurses' Association at the international nurses congress in Montreal in 1929 and the Dominion at the first international hospital conference in Atlantic City in the same year. On returning to the Domining she gave her service to the Registered Nurses’ Association. She is president of the Manawatu branch and a member of the executive council. She became New Zealand president in 1937. Miss MeKenny has been a member of the Wairarapa Hospital Board for the past eight years, where her work has been mainly concerned with nursing education, which she considers a great important factor in the welfare of the sick.

Miss McKenny has taken an active part in the activities of the New Zealand Nursing Association, having been instrumental in founding the Wanganui, Marlborough and Manawatu branches, and she was associated with the recent formation of the Wairarapa branch.