Shortage of Nurses Handicaps Flu Fight
From The Indianapolis Star, Tuesday, October 22: Following emergency calls for aid from several Indiana counties where the influenza death rate approaches one in every 200 residents, Captain William King, assistant secretary of the state board of health, declared the most serious aspect of the influenza epidemic in Indiana is the lack of trained nurses. Relief in this connection was assured yesterday with the announcement that the Red Cross will establish a state nurses’ clearing house to handle the registration and assignment of nurses. The state board insists that private nurses should be released except in life or death cases and physicians are requested to postpone surgical operations unless necessary to save life. Every registered nurse, every practical nurse and every woman with sufficient training are called upon to place their services through the Red Cross to fight this disease.
“’Shortage of Nurses Handicaps Flu Fight,” The Indianapolis Star, 22 October 1918, p. 1:6
