NEW ZEALAND VOLUNTEER SISTERS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4004, 10 August 1915, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND VOLUNTEER SISTERS.

Trustees—A Committee of Trustees will be arranged later. Honorary Legal Adviser—Mr Raymond, Crown Prosecutor, Christchurch.

Honorary Medical Advisers—Dr. J. Guthrie, Christchurch; Dr J. M. Mason, Wellington. . Honorary Foreign Medical Adviser —Dr Jessie Scott (who leaves July 24 for Serbia). Secretary—Miss E. A. Rout, 92 Armagh Street, Christchurch (P.O. Box 360, telephone 1392).

OBJECT. The object of the Sisterhood is to organise bodies of sensible intelligent women to go abroad to nurse and tend the sick and wounded. These women will be between the ages of thirty and fifty, and preferably between thirtylive and forty. No woman under thirty can become a member unless she is a trained nurse. -No woman will he accepted unless passed as physically and organically sound by the honorary medical, advisers of the Sisterhood. These women will he asked to give up one year of their life for practically no payment at all, for the good ot their race and their nation, and on the claims of humanity alone. Maintenance will ho and a personal allowance to-each woman of 10s per week only. A uniform will also be provided, transport to Egypt or elsewhere, and each woman will be insured against iJlniess, accident and death. The movement goneral'v will be a woman’s movement. ft is felt that throughout our national life there run great silent streams of loving care and patient sustained effort, of a desire and a striving to help the sick and wounded at home ami abroad, of tender anixous endeavor to fulfil racial and national obligations, and these streams run perhaps most deeply and most silently in the hearts of the women of the community. STATUS OF VOLUNTEER SISTERS. This is the position we take up. AH the women who enrol as Volunteer Sisters renounce all professional status and become probationers. This has been agreed to by all of them, although some of them are trained nurses. Their rank is probationer. Over them next come the staff sisters at- the military hospitals, who are registered trained nurses, and whom our volunteers must address as “ Sister.’' Over these again is the matron of the hospital. AY 1 1 on our volunteers are on duty they are addressed as "Nurse, in the same way as probationers atordinary hospitals are addressed. When they arc off duty they are addressed by their ordinary names —Miss.’ (or Mrs) So-and-so. When a general description of our Sisterhood was first published I said this :

"These women will always act. under the orders of registered nurses or medical officers. 'I lie term vsister’ has boon employed merely in

a human sense, in the same way as it is used by deaconesses, nuns and others. The term -nurse’ has a certain definite statutory meaning, and it was considered unfair to theprofessional registered nurse to promote any wide and general use <>i this word for women who had not the registered nurse’s technical training and legal status.”

After the South African war some women who had been employed as helpers in connection with sick aml wounded solciiors advertised themselves as Nurse So-and-so, implying that they had. gone through the registered nurse’s training, when they iu>.d not. The members of the \ »!unteer Sisters will not be permitted to do that. They will later be asked to sign an agreement- not to do so, and the Sisterhood will, as soon as possible, get some amendment to the Nurses Registration Act, whereby it will become a statutory offence for a woman to advertise or call herself "nurse, in the same Wav as it is an offence for any person to advertise or call him self or herself “doctor'’ without conforming to the legal requirements for a medical practitioner MEMBERSHIP.

As stated before, all members muH be over thirty .years of ago. except trained nurses, and they may be married or unmarried. From the applicants only the viry strongest and best qualified are selected. The honorary medical advisers are absolutely autocratic in this respect. At present (July 10, 1915) twenty-two members of the sisterhood are in the Trentham hospitals. Many of them liavo macly great financial and professional saorifi.es in joining. At twenty-i our hours’ notice many o* the women have given up permanent positions worth £IOO or £lso a year to sign on at “10s a week and found.” The Christchurch contingents include three mental hospital nurses, a traiued nurse from the Cashmere Sanatorium, several maternity nurses, also the assistant-matron from Te Oranga Home, and other women holding important and lucrative professional positions. Such women have been released readily by their employers, and they have come in with the utmost devotion and self-sacrifice. Difficulty, abnegation, hard and unceasing service for practically no pay at all, these are the allurements that are acting now on the hearts of our women. The Sisterhood has offered certain practical conditions —maintenance, 10s per week personal allowance, and insurance against sickness, disablement and death. Not one member of the Christchurch contingent has troubled herself to verify the reality of these offers. Never mind about these things, has been their attitude; let the secretary attend to them : our work is to clear away the disease and discomfort in the mill to*.\ camps. But let it' he understood that proper arrangements will be made by the iSisterhood for all its members. \\ e shall ask the Government Insurance Department to take out policies covering all our members immediately we shall ask the Health Department to enrol us all as “hospital probationers,” and let our military nursing service count towards attaining the status of the trained registered nurse in the future when our present work ceases as the nations lay down thenarms. „ , FINANCE. The Sisterhood proposed to raise£l nor week maintenance-money for each member, to preclude all chance of official refusal of services. Dr. Valintine, Chief Health Officer, a no Director of Military Hospitals, has waived that immediately. That means £22 per week now taken off our sh outers' for the Christchurch women alone. It is agreed that we fm nisli all other expenses for a month, but that period is named merely to give the Department time to make propel plans What we shall ask the Department next week is to' take over the whole financial responsibility ot the scheme, and leave ns to attend to the human responsibilities of selecting 1 and proper women for tins work. ' ‘ ■Sisterhood has no desire whatever to waste time and energy tilting at official personages. But let no man, officially or unofficially, dare to come between up and our hereditary duty-ot tending the sick and wounded. WC want all the Departmental help can get. But we will perform our duty to the sick and wounded with the Government’s help or without it. SISTERS’ PLEDGE. This is the pledge we are signing, secretary and all: — “We, the undersigned, gladly am freely offer one year, or more, ol onr fives.for the service at home <•;■ abroad, of nursing and tending rkw and wounded, and we promiso w obev ■ Cheerfully and readily al orders given to us by those in a.utho ritv • and we hereby express oui willingness to do all necessary worl of any nature or kind whatsoever W e also., promise'to do our utmos

individually and collectively to maintain the good health, good cheer, and good temper of the gy oup we are placed in. We agree to accept as our remuneration maintenance plus 10s per week personal allowance ” ‘ Don’t let any woman apply unless she is sure she wishes to conform to that pledge. _ Don’t let any woman think she will he allowed to sign it unless she lias been nicked . out from among many willing hundreds. Don't let any woman come along with £IOO in her hand, as some have in Christchurch, offering to put this amount : into the-scheme if the Sisterhood would accept them as members. No j woman buys her way in hero. The ; woman with two thousand n year and the woman with twopence a year stand on the one common ground of their womanhood. \Ye want —just those who are most fit for the service. Address all communications as directed from time to time in local newspapers. Headquarters: 92, Armagh Street, Christchurch. Christchurch, July JO, 191 <v