The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1921-09-21
FAMOUS SERGEON FLAYS
The NRRSES UNION
DR.. Mayo, The Famous Rochester
Surgeon, States That Only The
Wealthy Will Be Able To Afford
Nurses.

Dr.. Charles H. Mayo of the
famous Mayo Clinic at Rochester,
Minnesota, says the nursing union
has come to be the most autOcIatic
closed shop in the country"
In an authorized interview in the
Pictorial Review for October, in
which he calls for 100000 sub
nurses to relieve the acute shortage,
DR.. Mayo charges that the leaders of
organized nursing have carried
their methods too far and with too
high a hand, and in doing this have
defeated their own purpose, for they
have lost sight of real impulse of
their profession-the alienation OF
the plain of the world. MlnlStra-
ton to the sick and the dying can
not be bound by hard-and-fast laws
they are the divine right of the poor
as well as the rich A prOhlbItlVe
price can not be put upon them. Ana
that is what the nurses are dolng.
Too great a cOmmerclaIZatIOn OF
their services is making proper care
of the sick impossible for those IN
moderate circumstances. In add
ton, their demands as to hours and
regulations cannot be met in hos
pitfalls if the hospitals are to mani
tain their high standards of service.
l understand that in some hospitals
the nurses have even resorted to
strikes. This is a shocking indict-
ment of the profession, and l can
not believe that the nurses involved
were heartily in sympathy with them
They must have been misled by the
agitation of one or two malcOntents
and incompetents Supposing that
doctors should so on strikes! The
thought is no less appalling than
nurses strike. Therefore with the
union becoming a menace it is time
for the public to cooperate against
it.
The educational standards for
registration of nurses as set down by
the nursing boards of the various
States have gone beyond all reason.
ANY intelligent girl can acquire IN
two years all the knowledge neces-
sary for the thoroughly competent
nurse. l know that in my work L
never have to ask any nurse to do
ANYTHING which she could not have
learned how to do in two years
States demand high-school pre-edu-
cation and three years training for
the registered nurse, the only way to
circumvent them is by training sub
nurses or nursing aids who Will ac-
cept smaller pay, whose demands
are not so eXacting, and who will be
proficient enough to take hold OF al
most any case presented to them.
Seven dollars day for an eight
hour day is more than eXorbitant; 1t
is prohibitive 1t means that IN
cases of dangerous disease where
constant skilful care and watching
are necessary to save the life OF the
patients, three nurses must be en-
, ployed at a daily cost Of twenty-one
dollars day How, 1 ask, can the
man or woman of average means al
ford to. pay such charges? They
can not do it. Neither can the hos
pitfalls if they wish to keep open their
doors.
Good nurses are born. They are
not made, any more than good steno-
graphers OF good writers or good
lawyers are made. EDUCATION helps,
but if a girl has all the education IN
the world and the best of secretarlal
training and yet lacks manual deX-
terity and sound business sense, she
will not make a good stenographer.
All the training in the world will
not make a good nurse of girl who
is always thinking about herself and
whose heart does not go out toward
suffering humanity in a desire to
ease that pain by self-sacrificlng
service. From Pictorial Review
for OofOhnr