NURSING CAREER GROWS IN POPULARITY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 793, 1 October 1954, Page 24

NURSING CAREER GROWS IN POPULARITY

Nursing has become one of the most attractive careers for: young women, and a large proportion of those who go on to higher education at post-primary schools select one of the many forms, such as General, Maternity, Midwifery, School Dental, Nursing Aids, etc. No doubt many girls are influenced by the fact that, in addition to substantial material rewards, nursing offers personal rewards. There is real satisfaction in helping to restore to health the physically and mentally sick. Of recent years Psychiatric Nursing has come to the fore, State examination and registration have been provided and the New Zealand qualified Psychiatric Nurse is highly regarded, both in her own country and overseas. There have been major advances in the treatment of mental illness and the far-reaching changes in the past decade call for gteater skills and knowledge on the ara: of the nurse. Present treatment represents a truly human and genuine effort to. help a section of sick people whose progress towards recovery was far too long adversely affected by popular misconceptions. New Zealanders today can be rightly proud of the advances made in this field of social welfare, and of what their doctors and nurses in mental hospitals are doing to restore the mentally sick to health, Mental illness is a form of sickness that is no more peculiar than any other ailment to which the human body is heir. There are degrees of mental as well as physical sickness. For many years people believed that the misfortune had its origin in some shameful family defect due to mysterious causes that lay beyond human understanding, and that the illness should be concealed from all but closest relatives. J Our, mental hospitals show how little justification there is for this misunderstanding. Under the impetus of the new approach to mental sickness the old hospitals are being steadily re-organised and the new ones are breaking new ground in construction and design. Standard accommodation is now the villa, that is, a self-contained building with small wards, comfortable well furnished sitting rooms, dining room and recreational facilities, The villas are set in attractive surroundings and are designed to ensure that tranquillity so necessary for sick people. World wide research on mental illness provides a specialised body of knowledge readily available to doctors. Psychiatry has made a valuable contribution to a clearer understanding of the causes and symptoms of personality disturbances. Drugs such as ‘pentathol and insulin have been found to be of value in remedial treatment. Likewise the use of electrical equipment. Surgery also makes a contribution. In brief, medical science has mobilised modern resources behind the drive to hasten recovery and mitigate the severity of mental sickness. People who enter mental hospitals are no more "incurable" than patients in any other hospital, A hospital is the proper place for sick people. To repeat malicious and stupid tales about mental hospitals is doing a disservice to the mentally ill. It is perpetuating the superstitious prejudices of the past. It is meee sickness the subject of cruel jokes, and is unfair to the doctors and nurses who are devoting their lives-to alleviating distress. (Published by arrangement with the Department : . of Health)