Page:A short history of nursing - Lavinia L Dock (1920).djvu/294

278 278 A Short History of Nursing guiding influence in shaping nursing conditions in Denmark. It publishes a journal, the Tidskrijt for Sygeplege, maintains a system of pensions, sick funds, and convalescent homes for private nurses, and has largely standardized hospital work and private duty. Its aims will not be fulfilled until it has brought about state registration, which will, among other things, compel a systematic rotation in ward work, now lacking. A peculiarity of the Danish hospitals has long been that medical men object to having a Matron or superintendent of nurses who would necessarily have power to move pupils about from one ward to another for their complete experience. They dislike having nurses changed. It resulted that while every ward had a head Sister, there were no hospital Matrons. With this exception, the Danish hospitals and nurses are remarkably like the English, whose customs are congenial to them. The Sisters are charming and able women and the hospitals are beautiful and homelike. Denmark has an army nurse corps under a super- intending Matron, who is also a member of the Red Cross Central Board. The Sisters, without having military rank are yet treated as officers. Besides the highly trained Red Cross Sister, Den- mark also provides for a system of " nurses' aids,"