Taupō author Pamela Wood has written a book about the history of nursing in New Zealand. Photo / Supplied
Taupō author Pamela Wood has written a book about the history of nursing in New Zealand. Photo / Supplied
With a background in both nursing and history, there are few people better placed to write a book about the history of nursing in New Zealand than Pamela Wood.
And that is what the Taupō author has done.
New Zealand Nurses: Caring for our people 1880 – 1950 draws on a wealth of personal stories to identify the values, traditions, community and folklore of the nursing culture from 1880 – when hospital reforms began to formally introduce "modern nursing" into New Zealand – to 1950, three years after New Zealand severed its final tie as part of the British Empire.
Pamela says that in the late 19th century, New Zealand nursing led the world.
"Within just a few years, it was the first country to have not only a chief nurse but a specific Nurses Registration Act, an enfranchised nursing workforce, nurse inspectors of hospitals, indigenous registered nurses, a government scholarship scheme to support indigenous women to train, and an eight-hour day for nurses in training," she says.
Taupō author Pamela Wood has written a history of nursing in New Zealand. Photo / Supplied
She says the book will, obviously, appeal to nurses but also anyone interested in history and in particular New Zealand history.
"During that time, New Zealand was known as the social laboratory of the world because it could bring in all these different ways of looking at things and legislation. We were able to bring in the Nurses Registration Act in 1901, which was the first in the world.
"That gave nurses a stronger professional basis. We were the first country to have nurses' inspectors of hospitals and, as far as I can tell, we were the first to have a government scholarship scheme to train indigenous women as nurses. There were a number of firsts in New Zealand, including first nursing workforce with the vote."
New Zealand Nurses examines the nursing cultures that emerged in a broad range of practice settings and circumstances, from hospitals to homes, rural back blocks to Māori settlements, and from war and disaster zones to nursing through a pandemic.
Nurses have always played a vital role during pandemics, with Covid-19 placing their frontline work in the spotlight. This book shows how nurses in the past provided resourceful care in the exceptional circumstances of the 1918 influenza pandemic, as well as in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.
"I was really pleased to hold the book in my hands once it was printed," Pamela says.
"It represents all that research, thinking and writing which I love doing, so it's so nice to see it, hold it and know it's available now for people to read."
• New Zealand Nurses: Caring for our people 1880 – 1950 is now available in bookstores throughout New Zealand.
