Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1921-03-17
NEED OF NURSES
is NATIONWIDE;
DRIVE STARTED
Many Volunteered During
War, but Returned to
Regular Lives.
SITUATION IS CRITICAL
BY FREDERIC j. HAsKIN.


try are looking for her, because lately,
she doesn't seem to be looking for them.
Nursing has always been a woman's
work. Out of every class of high school
graduates, or even out of grammar school
graduating classes, there have invariably
been some girls who would be nurses.
Now, one big hospital In New York re-
ports that instead Of having thirty five
or forty pupil nurses entering each year,
1t gets only about four. That proportion
Is repeated all over the country, and con-
ditions are worse in the smaller hospi-
tai schools where facilities for training
are not SO attractive to student MUSES..
When the war offered adventure and
dramatic service to volunteer nurses
there were thousands OF women who
studied and worked untiringly-even to
sacrificing their health, some of them
so long as the fighting lasted After
that, like the soldiers, most of them
wanted to get back to their regular lives.
Nursing with them was war work-inci-
dental.
So the war did not food the country
with nurses seeking civilian employment
On the contrary, the lack Of nurses for
hospitals and homes has become acute.
And because the future looks still more
critical, the national nursing associa-
lions have started a campaign to interest
girls In nursing as a profession. This
campaign has already been taken up en-
Enthusiastically in twenty -four States, for
the need for more nurses is nation wide.
While recruiting is being pushed, the
nursing organizations are also trying to
awaken the hospitals to the f&ct that
they cannot expect to attract the kind
z ahOuId he in h.
Profession unless student life is made
elsier and more profitable. The hos
pitfalls were beginning to see this for
themselves and a reform is under way.
OVERWORKED STUDENTS
CAUSE OF SHORTAGE.
In the past, the student nurse worked
twelve hours a day. Her classes were
moved about from one hour to another or
left out entirely when her services were
needed about the wards. In fact these
conditions still obtain in some train
ing schools but they will not last long,
because girls will not enter these schools.
Progressive hospitals have shortened the
pupil nurses duty to eight hours, though
In some SCHOOLS studying and class work
has to be done outside of this period
What the nurses organizations are
saying is that no hospital should take
students for the purpose Of getting free
labor. II hospital is going to conduct
a school 1t should understand that it's
obligation to the students-to give them
a thorough Trainings as great as its
obligation to the patients-to give them
proper treatment. That they do not all
feel this obligation toward the nurses
they are to send out to all sorts Of re-
sponsible positions is proved by such
facts as those given by a State inspector
Int -,,ha
ures that 90 per cent OF the training
schools that he visits are to varying ex-
tents taking unfair advantage Of their
pupil nurses by surrendering the rights
Of the pupils in the alleged interests of
the sick"
One way in which the pupil nurse is
often carelessly used to help the hospital
is that sometimes patient in the hos
pital desires a nurse exclusively for his
case but cannot pay the rate of a gradu-
ate. He says he will take an Undergrad
uate nurse. and one of the pupils is de-
tailed to him at about half the grad
yates fee, the money going to the hos
pltal. Now, II this work lasted a few
days, even a week, 1t might. be practical
experience for the student She would
learn something of that particular type
Of disease. But the case may go on for
weeks or months, and the nurse is gain
ing nothing
Besides too long hours and a too dex-
ible system Of instruction In training
schools, pupil nurses have had to put up
with pad rooming conditions In one
hospital here an unused ward is fitted as
a dormitory for the pupils. In another
school the students live in houses across
the street from the hospital, four or FIVE
girls in a room. The desirable standard
for nurses quarters is comfortable
residence well lighted and heated and
separate from the hospital with single
rooms for the students.
Hospitals are having to meet higher
standards because they can no longer
overlook the fact that young women are
more cautious about starting upon a
career now than they once were No
girl who enters a hospital with any
understanding of the work expects to
have an easy time. but she does expect
and demand a broad course OF training
under livable conditions.
OTHER VOCATIONS
MORE INVITING
There are so many other vocations open
to the high school girl graduate now
that she no longer takes up nursing as
the alternative of a life Of teaching
school. That Is the main reason why
the army of nurses has dwindled. Bust
ness, law and other professions are Of
ferfng big rewards, while the hospitals
have gone on complacently thinking that
the great opportunity for service through
nursing would continue as sure an at
traction as ever.
Most women who take uP nursing as a
profession are impressed by the posi-
bilities of the work, but nowadays a
girl who is interested in this kind OF So
cial service is generally interested
enough to find out exactly what she will
get by her course of training. For in
stance, there are fewer girls entering
those hospitals, sanatoria and private
hospitals that are not able to register
their graduates. Not to be registered In
the State means that the graduate with
her two or three years Of training can
not become q member of the Red Cross
Nursing Association, an Army or Navy
nurse, nor would she be admitted as
staff nurse in most hospitals of recog-
nized standing.
Training school standards are rising
and so are the standards for nurses. At
one time girls just out of grammar
school were in a great many hospitals
admitted as rrobatloners. The tendency
now is to demand a high school diploma
and to make the nurses training approx
innate a college or normal school course
with a b. S. degree. Over twenty coll
leges now maintain schools Of nursing
usually giving "a fve-year course. The
Army also has an excellent training
school where three year course Is given.
Nurses-really trained nurses-are GO
ing to be needed In ever increas num-
bers as we aim at higher standards of
health and sanitation. Right now, more
public health nurses are needed for child
welfare work, visiting nurse associations