The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 33

Caqr Kotiggg Ilarali, Saturday, June 28, 1881 Pare 33 FEATURES hovara ovar in protest BOOKS ARTS: ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE til ITHB FIGURE of Floranca Kightlnsala with har lamp still t' nursing profession. against Federal Government hearth cuts. Such Industrial ia at odda with the publie'a old fashioned concept of nursing. SUE JOHNSON talks to nursing supervisors and nurses about their careers. daughter of gentleman.

Nursaa war auppoaad to ba callad to their vocation, like a nun. Last weak 3,000 nursaa marched through Sydney 1 gf Mt nil kS Prcturw by PETER MORRIS on a plasma replacement machine in Sydney Hospital's haemodialysis unit. RIGHT: Sister "Julie" Tonkin works in the hospital's intensive care unit. matrons gusto. "Did I tell you about the time I met my current boyfriend at the airport dressed as a nun with black stockings and a garter belt? It's probably no surprise that my mother still worries about my public image but she tells all her bridge friends that I'm quite nice really, being a nurse and all that! "People expect a certain code of behaviour from me because I'm a matron, but they'll just have to get used to risque, wicked old me." The campaign by the NSW Nurses Association is fully supported by the director of nursing at the Prince Henry Hospital, Mrs Joan Englert.

Mrs Englert, 48, finds the campaign "stimulating rather than "I don't mean stimulating because I like conflict, but stimulating in the sense of trying to find answers," Mrs a nurse since she was 18, is in charge of 650 nurses. 'She says the role of "matron" has changed dramatically. It is no longer a case of doing the rounds of the hospital once a day. "I have interviews, delegations, administrative work, but I still don't have a strictly nine to five I start work at eight and I'm supposed to finish at five but very rarely do." Mrs Englert was an operating room nurse for 24 years before deciding to pursue an administration career. "Nurses have three choices, they can either stay a nurse or go into the administration or education side." Mrs Englert believes nursing has been revolutionised since she began her training.

"The nurse's role has been extended so she's now a teacher, adviser, communicator and coordinator." The biggest changes in nurses' knowledge had been in the renal, spinal, and intensive care areas. Nursing, Mrs Englert told me, still attracted a particular type of "caring" person. "In that sense I suppose my-own image of nursing hasn't dimmed. Although I'm on the administrative side, the most important part of my job is still the human relations angle." U- The corridors of the inner-City teaching hospitals couldn't have been more hospital-like. Old linoleum, public toilet green ALL THOSE young and old, marching down George Street.

It was too much for one pinstripe suited businessman. J-We'got all. red in the face and followed them one or two blocks. "l(pu should be ashamed of yourselves. People are dying in hospital while you walk down the.

bloody street," he yelled unselfconsciously. seems nothing can raise the quicker than suggestions of -industrial action by nurses. Editorial 'writers write themselves into moral 'corners and use words like "duty, responsibility and dedication" and apparently rational men start catling abuse from street corners. Certainly the editorial writers and rational men share a concern for the interests of the patient, but perhaps their distaste for industrial action by purses has something to do with the. traditional image of the nurse.

She is supposed to be altruistic, selfless, apolitical and the doctors' little. handmaiden. Becoming a nurse was once something like becoming a nun or a mother and she certainly wouldn't forsake her patient to. march through the streets for a 1 jigger pay ii But last Week's march still con-: ftthed the spirit of the traditional nurse. Organised by the NSW jhiurses' Federation, the 3,000 nurses inarched to protest against the reduction in Federal health funds and poor manning levels in public hospitals, not a bigger pay packet.

Says Sylvia Martin, the NSW Nurses' Association research officer: "The Government's got us over a They cut health funding because they know we're the people Jeast likely to retaliate. If we tried anything like the Telecom employees they'd slap a restraining order on us as soon as look at us." "'-Sylvia Martin and many of the State's 65,000 nurses are becoming' disheartened by their lack of industrial muscle. It means that nurses have not had a wage rise since 1976 and work under conditions that would not be tolerated by any other jinion. A first year student nurse receives $144 a week, while a general registered nurse gets $220.50 in the first year and $254.20 in the fifth. V'The highest salary a nurse can earn Is $26,000 a year as director of nutsing (formerly called matron) of a large 750-bed hospital.

The job entails the administration of as many as 1,600 nurses and other staff. vihe medical superintendent of a hospital, technically performing the same job except with fewer 'doctors on the staff, earns $42,838 a year, 'iiiTne nurses' wage claim of 1980 Was by the Arbitration Commission, which said it contravened wage indexation guidelines. Art application to extend the break between shifts from eight hours to. 10 hours was.also rejected. are working double shifts sometimes, but the most significant effect is that nurses haven't got time to deliver the sort of care they should be.

giving," said Sylvia Martin. Under this sort of pressure, a lot Sill vis McDermott checks blood levels Director of nursing Julianna Kerr, 34, decided to become a nurse at 12 after listening to an "awful" radio program about wartime nurses called White "It was glamorous and full of glorious maidens playing saviours to wounded soldiers. That's what I was going to do," she said. Miss Kerr said she only saw nursing then as a fill-in job between school and marrying. "It Wasn't really till 1974 after two marriages and divorces that I realised I was going to be a working lady for the rest of my life." Miss Kerr is an energetic, witty person with an intelligent approach to nursing and her job as director of nursing at the Sydney Clinic, Waver-ley, a privately owned psychiatric Miss Kerr, has been a matron working in private' hospitals since she was 29.

She has a psychiatric-certificate and completed her general nursing certificate in 1974. She is responsible for 20 staff at the 44-bed clinic. "I hope the staff feel they can come to me with any problems. I encourage the staff to feel they are working with me, not under me. I think we all get on pretty well," she-said.

Miss Kerr and the medical tor if the clinic have adopted some revolutionary methods. The staff 1 LEFT: Sister Dianne of nurses are resigning (one major. Sydney teaching hospital is losing 20 nurses a week) or turning to analgesic abuse. According to a recent Health Commission report many nurses suffer from obesity; stress and constipation because of the nature of the work arid shiftwork. The very essence of nursing is changing too.

Today's nurse has increased responsibility and an increased technical knowledge. In some instances, in kidney work for example, the nurse and not the doctors is responsible for the maintenance of special equipment. Increasingly, the nurse becomes a specialist and may choose to specialise in neurology, intensive care, or coronary care. Yet the figure of Florence Nightingale still hovers, despite recent biographies indicating she was a manipulative, authoritarian woman' interested in self-promotion as much' as anything else. The form qf Miss Nightingale, responsible for formulating a system of nurse training, can be found in small portraits and busts in hospitals throughout Sydney.

FN has fallen from her pedestal: among the student nurses though. "She was really a bit of a bitch," said one. The student nurse is likely to be different from the nurse of 20' years ago. She is probably more mature, more cynical and interested iri nursing as a career rather than as a stopgap between school and marriage. There are more men entering nursing too they how make up about 4 per cent of students.

The female nurse, however, still fulfils a public stereotype, according to the nurses The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to. She suffers from the Madonna-whore complex she 'is a Madonna in the ward because she "helps" people, but socially she's a Nurse and everybody's heard of nurses' parties, haven't they? And. don't the sailors ring the nurses' home when their ships come in? imm CITY MVESTMENT B0MWU BARGAIN PRICED STUDIO APARTMENTS from don't wear uniforms, patients are' called don't want them, to think they are under some sort of control, they have total say in their and clients call staff by their first names. She describes the clinic as', "modem and It takes patients ranging from those'suffering acute psychosis to mothers suffering post-partum depression. Miss Kerr says she supports the association's campaign because she happy" with the cuts.

"There needs to be some sort of re-evaluation of the health care system clinics should not have to close down and reduce staff." She acknowledges that the staff at private hospitals have less to fear than those at. public hospitals. "Most nurses who were attracted to the private system were attracted in the first place by the absence of bureaucracy and they are therefore less affected." Nursing, Miss Kerr says, is "in my blood. It attracts a gutsy, down to earth type of person. I definitely think we're a breed apart." v.

She rebels, however, at the stereotype of the nurse, 'and matron. are always saying 'But your hips aren't broad as though you've got to be dowdy if you're going to be effective in your caring." She explodes myths' about If successful, the student! then becomes ia registered nurse or sb ter. vThe other alternative is to complete the four-year full-time Diploma of Applied Science Basic Nursing course at the Cumberland College of Health Sciences or the Rirerina College of Adranctd Education. The registered nurse then receives a pay rise each year until' she reaches the top pay lerel fifth year. After the fifth year ahe may.

choose to remain on fifth year nurses' pay, but most nurses go on to complete another certificate. Most hospitals require at least 12 months' expo la as a regis-; tend nunc before aOowtag them to complete a further certificate. These post-grad uita include midwifery, renaT and intensive care. If a nurse decides to seek an saliustiaatrjitbMi career she may seek posit km as charge wirst, then supervisor. From.

there she may go on ts become ssdstaot director of wafting, deputy director of mining and finally, director rfittBTsing. Hoyr nurses climb the career ladder walls and cold ai ice even in the middle of a warm winter's day. The grubby old building is the workplace of Virginia Makeham, Dianne McDermott, Julie Tonkin and Lisa Montgomery. Sister Lisa 36, works from a tiny office across from the casualty unit where she is the supervisor. The day the Herald visited was as rough as any other.

The ward sees between 180 to 230 people a day and 1,200 a week. Lisa Montgomery gets cases of anything from chest pains to head colds. She has more than 20 nurses and students to supervise. "Yes, 1 resent not being paid adequately for. the responsibility that I' Continued page 35 will not last.

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i TwtTftmrmwMiKwmimmmmmmirw-v wmmA aB'' a-1 Damons Iratton tmtUunnoilneiudia In prfce. il ICflEOOHT'sV. I "ST. 1 HvM7py is TO BECOME a nurse, the applicant must have obtained the HSC with appropriate passes in English arid mathematics or a science subject, phis two other He or ahe must be orer'17. The bask training for nurses is conducted at' training where student nurses are employ-td by the hospital and paid during their three-year count The three-year tmdrgraduite courses are available in general, psychiatric and mental counts.

Student mines are distinguished from tnuoed mm big staff fai various ways depend-, tag on the hospitals some wear' name badges dH ailing their year of training, others hare different colound uniforms. During the three-year training, a nana has 32 study week! over the three-year period and the rest of the tune is spent in the wards. After the final third year exams have been passed, the student none then arts for the Nurses Registration Board Examination. mm to, ft 1 iK 'I: INSPECT THIS WEEKEND these Open Saturday and Sunday 1-5pm, and Wednesday 12 Hbu Z4ii tor a nersona anoa nimem. 3Hii(olg)S(2)tniSc 515 Military Road, Mosman The director of nursing at the Prince Heary Hospital, Mrs Joan Englert.

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