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Four decades on from nursing training first taking the leap from hospital to tertiary-based training is to be celebrated in Christchurch later this month.

Back in 1973, two polytechnics – the then-Christchurch Technical Institute and Wellington Polytechnic – were chosen to pilot the first comprehensive diploma programmes in the country.

Graduates of that first Christchurch cohort, which included Ministry of Health chief nurse Dr Jane O’Malley, are to gather in late November at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) to celebrate 40 years of nursing.

The other polytechnic nursing school pilot, now Massey University’s Wellington campus, marked its 40^th year earlier this year with the launch of the university’s new College of Health.

CPIT head of nursing Dr Cathy Andrew said since 1973 the school had graduated 4107 registered nurses and 212 enrolled nurses.

The two pilot polytechnic nursing schools followed increasing disquiet in the 1960s that the apprentice-style hospital-based training programmes were not preparing nurses for the demands of modern hospitals, which was reflected in the very high attrition rate (up to 50 per cent) of nursing students.

The Carpenter Report in 1971 lead to the bold experiment of polytechnic-based training to “comprehensively” prepare nurses for beginning practice in “any type of hospital or branch of the health service” in a 2700–3000 hour programme, of which half should be theory and the rest practical clinical work.

How the first “comprehensive” nurses were to be finally assessed was left up in the air until near the end of the third year when it was decided that they should sit all the state final exams then offered that is the exams for psychiatric, psychopaedic, general, and obstetric registered nurses.

“They went through the mill and so did we,” recalled the first head of the Wellington school Judith Christensen in an interview with Nursing Review in 2003 to mark the 30^th anniversary.

Timeline of RN training in NZ

1883	First hospital training programme.
1922-25	Attempt to establish university-based diploma of nursing at Otago University.
1928	Foundation of postgraduate nursing school at Victoria University.
1950s-60s	Push for reform of hospital-based nursing curriculum.
1971	Carpenter Report.
1972	Nursing Education in New Zealand report (Dept of Education).
1973	Pilot diploma programmes at the then Wellington Polytechnic and Christchurch Technical Institute.
1973	First post-registration degrees in nursing established at Massey and Victoria Universities.
1974	Pilot diploma programme at Nelson Polytechnic.
1975	Pilot diploma programme at Auckland Technical Institute.
1976	Government approved permanent establishment of diploma programmes at polytechnics.
1990	Last hospital-based programme closed.
1992	First pre-registration nursing degrees established.