VPRS 16865 Lady Superintendant's Reports

Full description

This series consists of monthly reports to the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Committee of Management from the Lady Superintendant (previously Matron, later Director of Nursing). Entries are handwritten and each report is between 3-6 pages long. It includes reports on the Orthopaedic Section, Hampton, Sherbrooke, the 'new' Nurse's Home (opened 1958 at Parkville), other nursing accommodation, and in later reports, nursing in the Burns Unit, X-Ray Department and the Nurses' Mothers' Auxiliary.

Content varies depending on the era, but includes information on nursing numbers; trainee nurses (and date schools commenced); nurse assistants; teachers and methods of training; curriculum; post-graduate training opportunities; training and domestic issues; staff appointments and shortages; details of absences and resignations (date, and often where a resigned nurse was going); examinations; graduations; nursing prizes; initiatives (e.g. Preliminary Training School); wage claims and social events.

Folios are numbered 1-574. The volume has no entries after p446. A note at the end of the last entry states 'This book now concluded'. Future reports will be typed' and is signed 'Elaine Orr'.

The minutes of the Committee of Management make note of reports from the Lady Superintendant prior to July 1958, however their location is unknown. Reports for the period post 1972 may still be in the custody of the RCH; this is subject to further research.

Prior to transfer to Public Record Office Victoria, the records in this series were maintained as part of the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Archives. They were part of RCH accession number 2010/010.