Volume 3

A history of nursing : from the earliest times to the present day with special reference to the work of the past thirty years / edited, and in part written, by Lavinia L. Dock.

  • Dock, Lavinia L., 1858-1956.
Date:
[1912], ©1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of nursing : from the earliest times to the present day with special reference to the work of the past thirty years / edited, and in part written, by Lavinia L. Dock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    43/424 (page 17)
    larger world outside the hospital, there is a variety of choice for her: first let us mention district nursing, as Great Britain stands first in the perfect organ- isation of the Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Institute. Our nurse, holding her three-years’ certificate, is now required to take a further six-months’ training in district nursing, including the study of hygiene and instruction in sanitary matters. At the end of this time, if she passes a satisfactory examination, her name is placed on the Roll of Queen’s Nurses. Because of the importance of this association we shall presently give it some detailed consideration. Private duty is a branch of work which absorbs many nurses, and in none is the present disorganisa- tion in their ranks felt more acutely; in none are the economic conditions more unjust. In the private nursing world we find both the most highly trained and experienced nurses working on the co-operative system in connection with their own professional societies, and also those working on the private nursing staff of hospitals, which regard them as a legitimate and fruitful source of income. ^ The system of undergraduate private duty is not only unfair to the self-supporting nurse who has spent three years in preparation for her work, but is also most unjust to the pupil, whose best year in the hospital is sac- rificed and who thus loses the most valuable part of her training. The private nurse is also exposed to the competi- tion of the hospital failures, the semi-trained, the untrained, and a dark substratum of the criminal class, who find, in the confidential relations in which ^ See Official Reports, The London Hospital, as example. VOL. III.—2