Árdís - 01.01.1944, Blaðsíða 39

ant mothers are given adequate supervision and some parts o£ the country
are quite deficient in facilities for providing this supervision.
V. Mental Illness:—
The prevention and treatment of mental illness is a major health
problem confronting Canada today. This problem will likely be increas-
ed by war casualties. We know that mental health is just as important
as physical health. Under Health Insurance, a country-wide campaign
could be undertaken to prevent mental and nervous diseases. Psychiatric
and mental hygiene clinics could be extended, and early detection and
treatment instituted.
<* <* Ö
Now I wish to turn to another side of my topic, namely the part
played by nurses in any generalized health scheme. No one has a greater
part to play in caring for the sick, or in conducting a program of pre-
vention of illness through education than the nurse. She is the link be-
tween the patient and the doctor, and in many instances is tlie first
person the patient talks to. The Public Health nurse is more than a nurse,
she is a health interpreter. She visits the homes; has time to instruct the
patient, and she interprets the doctors orders and follows up the patients.
She also advises in child care and training.
Nurses, in contrast to all other professional groups, receive all their
professional training in institutions which exist solely for the service of
the sick. In other words, nurses are trained and patients are nursed on
one and the same dollar. A school’s first responsibility is to its students,
and the hospital’s first responsibility is to its patients. It is hard to har-
monize these two responibilities in tlie one institution, that would take
a genius with the wisdom of a Solomon, and such people are a rarity.
As a result, since our first duty in a hospital is to the sick, the training
of the nurse in a Hospital School of Nursing comes second. Now, that
sort of condition does not produce the best nurses, so we maintain that
to be a real school of nursing its only responsibility should be to its
students. In our present type of hospital controlled school that is an
inpossibility and tliere the matter rests at present.
This is an age of change. Everything is changing. At one time in
the history of the world five hundred years might go by with very little
cultural change in the pattern of living. Now great changes are noted
within a short span of years. Medical pattern is changing with ever in-
creasing emphasis on the prevention of illness. Doctors and nurses will
be paid for keeping people fit as well as for curing their ailments. Nursing
patterns must change too, some sucli changes have already been made
and more are being contemplated. There is an urgency about these
plans for change. We have for some time past realized that young wom-
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