"Bootleg Nurses"

In populous New York State there are 38,000 trained nurses, graduates of accredited schools, who have licenses to practice. There are some 42,000 unclassified and unlicensed nurses. Most of these latter are competent, well-meaning "practical nurses" who have had some experience in caring for the sick and can help around the house. Some, however, are graduates of unaccredited schools, including "correspondence schools." A few are ignorant, crafty persons who pass themselves off as trained nurses. The pres-ent State law does not forbid unlicensed nurses to practice, or define the practice of nursing generally, or forbid unaccredited schools to operate.

Last week Assemblywoman Jane H. Todd introduced in both houses of the Legislature a bill designed to correct these shortcomings, to require all nurses to have some sort of license according to their training, skill and experience. Backed by many interested professionals and public-spirited citizens, and by the New York State Nurses Association, the Todd campaign got under way to a fanfare of agitation about "bootleg nurses." As horrible examples, the campaign literature cited: 1) a nurse who tried to feed a chop, two vegetables and a piece of pie to a child with a temperature of 104.5DEG; 2) a nurse who gave baths, accompanied by vigorous twisting and mauling, to a man with a fractured skull; 3) a nurse who thought that three one-quarter grain tablets of morphine made up a prescribed dose of one-twelfth grain.

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