Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1920 — NURSING SERVICE IS RAPIDLY EXPANDING [ARTICLE]

NURSING SERVICE IS RAPIDLY EXPANDING

This American Red Cross Work Flourishing in Small Towns Throughout Country. More than 37,000 graduate nurse* have been enrolled in the American Red Cross to date and its department of nursing Is dally increasing this enrollment. The department of nursing hns been authorized to maintain an adequate reserve of nurses for the army and navy. It will continue to supply the needs of the United States Public Health Service to which It has assigned more than 1,000 nurses In the last year. It will assist In establishing proper nursing service in. foreign countries where the American Red Cross has organized hospitals, dispensaries and schools for nurses. Courses in home hygiene and care of the sick have been started for thousands of women who have never received any education in this direction. Rural nursing which was in its Infancy a short while ago has been put ahead at least a decade through the work of the department of nursing and local Red Cross chapters. Public health nursing has been extended to many rural communities and now flourishes actively in hundreds of small towns and counties. Nearly a thousand efficient nurses have already been assigned to this kind of work. The department of nursing is uniting with other organizations in a year’s campaign in recruiting nurses for training schools, In educating the general public as to standards of nursing education and in showing communities their responsibility toward schools of nursing. It will endeavor to meet all these needs as well as to continue the enrollment of dietitians who will be utilized as Instructors In home dietetics, in developing nutritional clinics, and In supplying dietitians for the United States Public Health Service and the civilian hospitals. The Nursing Service will continue to offer to women and young girls the opportunity of securing instruction tn home hygiene and care of the sick In every community in the country. This Instruction has not only laid the foundation for public health but In some places has given impetus to the establishment of hospitals and community school houses. "As a community profits by the work of the nurse," says Miss Clara D. Noyes, director of the department of nursing, "it Is logical that the community should be aroused to its responsibility. The American Red Cross stands ready to help In a general campaign of recruiting and must have the support, sympathy and understanding of the medical profession as well as the intelligent co-operation of the people at large." •