BOPDHB History Tauranga Hospital Centennial Book | Page 23

At Tauranga Hospital we had three Fijian ladies who
came over and trained with us. On night duty one time
Lupe Vatui Tui was on Ward 1 and I was the nurse
runner helping her and we had a very elderly, very large,
Chinese lady who had definitely not been able to move
for some time. Well she fell out of bed this night. We
couldn’t understand how but she did. We tried to lift her
and eventually realised that we couldn’t. After getting help
from three or four other nurses we got her back into bed –
eventually!
Nurse Vatui Tui’s laugh was just gorgeous. The Fijians
were such beautiful, laughing, friendly people. The lovely
laughter throughout the wards when something unusual
happened was common with them, it was just lovely.
Nurses are doing more and more these days than we
could ever do. For example they can put in a drip these
days and we weren’t allowed to. The technology has
changed, we had very little technology. We would set
up for our Senior Nurse to do all her dressings. She
had to sterilize all the equipment and things in a little
sterilizer and set up her own trays. Nowadays they come
in packages and you just pick up what package you want
and so on. A huge time saving! What we had available
was much more basic compared to today.

Recollection of Pat Walker (Kendall)
Registered Nurse, Trained 1941
As one of the first trainee
nurses at Tauranga Hospital
in the early 1940’s duties
started at 6am until 2pm
and we attended lectures
after duty. At the end of our
second year we were doing
theatre duties - we were
also required to prepare the
deceased for burial (laying
out) and to take them to the
morgue for the undertaker to
collect.

Pat Walker (Kendall) a
member of the nurses’
netball team, The
Nightingales, circa 1941.

Recollection of Betty Gordon
(Blackie), Registered Nurse,
Trained 1945
When I trained at
Tauranga Hospital it was
quite small; a Men’s Ward
for medical and surgical,
the same for women, a
Maternity Annexe and
Tuberculosis (TB) Ward
away from the main
hospital.

A class of three nurses depart for Waikato Hospital to attend lectures in Ear,
Eyes, Nose and Throat. From left to right: Pat Walker (Kendall), Esther Borel
(Quinlivan) and Jean McCready (Voss). Circa 1941.

I did all my night nursing in
the TB Ward and as it was
near the end of WW2 we still had rationing in
New Zealand. Our powe