A Lesson in Vigilance? Mental Health Nursing Training in Western Australia, 1903–1958

Abstract

Researching examples of historical hospital-based training can provide some measure of the improvements in mental health nursing education which have taken place over time. Claremont Hospital for the Insane was the only major stand-alone psychiatric institution in Western Australia, and recent research into its mental health nursing training program between 1903 and 1958 provides an example of how nursing training could suffer in the hospital setting. There is much to learn from Claremont's experience: Not just to measure how far mental health nursing has progressed since that time, but also as a reminder of why and how accountability, supervision, and independent auditing all help to ensure quality delivery of training.

Anticipatory vigilance: A grounded theory study of minimising risk within the perioperative setting

“…Vigilance is identified within the healthcare and nursing literature as watchful attention (Hirter & Van Nest, 1995), being observant of signals and cues (Meyer & Lavin, 2005 watchful and the use of a response to an artificial signal (monitor) as an indicator of monitoring surveillance. Vigilance is also considered as a means of watching over or auditing the profession (Martyr, 2010;Meyer, 2002;Meyer & Lavin, 2005), which is similar to mutual watching in the current theory. Schreiber and MacDonald (2010a,b) use the term vigilance from the French term "vigile" meaning being watchful against danger.…”

Too little, too late: Mental health nursing education in Western Australia, 1958–1994

“…As well as Hobbs' study described above, Ellis's (1984) work – the first comprehensive history of mental health services in Western Australia – presents very little information. Martyr (2010) critiques the development of mental health nursing education in Western Australia in the early 20th century, while Piercey (2006) has produced a detailed and comprehensive account of the progress of general nursing education in Western Australia from 1962, which excludes mental health nursing but offers some useful points against which to compare its lack of progress in the same period. Perry (2006) provides a good account of the Western Australian School of Nursing (WASON) from 1975–1994, including a chronology of mental health nursing's entry into its course from 1981 which incorporates oral histories from former students to good effect.…”

“…The course was 3 years long, with 12 lectures a year given sporadically by medical staff and based entirely on the UK‐published Handbook for Mental Nurses , or ‘Red Book’. The course was run in‐house with no external accreditation or supervision, the examination topics underwent no upgrading or modernization from around 1917 onwards, and staff used the same edition of the Handbook for Mental Nurses , or ‘Red Book’, from 1923–1954 (Martyr 2010). This type of program was not uncommon in this era: similar courses were run at Parkside Hospital in Adelaide, South Australia (Dibden 2010), and Goodna Mental Hospital in Queensland (Finnane 2008).…”

“…These schemes never progressed: some prominent medical staff objected, and the State government saw the divergence in salaries between the two forms of nursing as an insuperable obstacle. Certainly, mental health nursing in Western Australia lagged behind general nursing in its admission criteria and standards (Martyr 2010). Elsewhere in Australia, mental health nursing education was changing, but under generalist control and standards: in 1963 the Nurses Registration Board of South Australia became responsible for setting the mental health nursing syllabus and examinations, and the number of hours of lectures increased to more than 200 (Bell 2003).…”

Breaking down the stigma of mental health nursing: A qualitative study reflecting opinions from western australian nurses

“…Traditionally, mental health nursing has been inextricably linked with psychiatry in that the role was medically driven and built on diagnostic classification and labelling (Martyr, ). Diagnostic labelling has long been recognized as the catalyst for stigma and may also be regarded as a barrier to developing and sustaining the nurse patient partnership (Farley‐Toombs, ).…”