"VITAL NECESSITY”

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10311, 21 January 1927, Page 3

"VITAL NECESSITY”

DISTRICT NURSE AT TOLAGA. PROTEST BY HOSPITAL BOARD. “A vital necessity for the health of the native community round Tolaga Bay,” was the manner in which the chairman of the Cook Hospital Beard (Mr. W. G. Sherratt) yesterday described the need lor the reappointment of a district native nurse stationed at Tolaga Bay, in criticising the Health Department’s action in refusing to supply a < nurse. The Director-General of Health, in a letter to the Board, stated that Dr .Mercer had informed him that in liLs opinion the district work at Tolaga Bay could be quite well carried out by the Board’s two nurses at the cottage hospital, and under the circumstances it was unnecessary for 'another nurse to be stationed at Tolaga Bay, which was not a densely populated district. The chairman (Mr. Sherratt): We’ve already protested to the Department against the removal of the district native nurse, and we certainly can’t allow the nurses at the cottage hospital to do the work. It is the Government’s responsibility to look after the Maoris. The hospital at Tolaga Bay was erected as a maternity home and as a relieving hospital for patients to receive treatment before being transported to Cook Hospital. It is nonsense to-say that the two nurses at the hospital can lie allowed to travel all over the district. —He moved that the Boaru could not agr*ee to the Tolaga Bay hospital nurses going out to treat natives, and urges the Department to appoint a district native nurse stationed at Tolaga Bay. In seconding , Mr. H. H. DeCosta emphasised the fact that it was unreasonable to expect these nurses to have to traverse the district.

Mr. H. Kenway stated that the use of a district nurse there was as much to teach the natives preventive measures against disease, as to perform work in a hygienic nature in the pas. He thought that if the nurse was to be lost the necessity of a nurse for the natives' at Tolaga Bay should he stressed by a deputation to wait upon the Minister in Wellington.

The Board unanimously passed the resolution urging the appointment of a district nurse.

Dr. Yalintine also adyised that the whole question of handing over the district nurses to the Hospital Boards was under consideration, and advice of the decision would he forwarded later. The letter was received.