Born in New Plymouth 1937, Helen Donovan moved to Kaitaia with her family in the early 1940s. Her interest in nursing began when she spent a week in hospital after an appendectomy aged thirteen. At fifteen, whilst still attending secondary school, Helen worked at Kaitaia Hospital as a nursing aide. She was responsible for providing patients with drinks, bedpans, and basins for washing. She was even left on her own during night shifts in the children’s and babies’ ward.
Upon leaving school at age sixteen Helen felt that the only real career paths available were in teaching, working as a shop assistant, banking and nursing. She worked as a doctor’s receptionist for a year before deciding to apply for nurse training in Napier. Starting training in 1955, Helen was the youngest of the 25 girls in her class. She recalls that she was told at the beginning of her training that she would not be able to sit the final state exam with her cohort because she would not yet be 21.
On the wards the student nurses’ duties included getting the wards ready for rounds. ‘You had to have everyone spick and span and tidily in their beds’. Nurses were expected to clean the beds and lockers immaculately every day, a task that was strictly monitored by the matron.
There was a strict hierarchy on the wards. ‘You kept your position as a junior nurse…you never approach doctors’. The matron was treated with reverence and respect. Helen describes all the junior staff waiting at lunch, standing behind their chairs until the matron arrived and gave them the nod to sit down.
After registering Helen went to work at Porirua Mental Hospital as a general nurse in July 1958. She was responsible for the ‘basic care’ of the patients, such as preventing bedsores and administering some drugs. She recollects that Porirua Hospital paid relatively substantial wages so that by the time she left in January 1959, Helen managed to save a significant sum of money. She ended up using the savings to support her studies at university.
Helen took a break from nursing in 1959 when she undertook a Law Degree at Victoria University of Wellington. She was one of nine women in her class of 100 students and by the end of her second year she was the last woman left. Helen would pick up nursing work, covering nurses’ holiday leave, over the summer in the university break, something that she describes as an advantage over other female Law students looking for holiday work.
During her training she met and married James, who had also trained in Law. Persisting with her degree, despite moving city (back to Napier) and having four children, Helen completed her LLB in 1968. When her youngest child was three years old, she returned to work as a nurse to earn a bit of extra money for the family. Working part-time in hospital, Helen describes finding some significant changes compared to when she last worked in the hospital. The sister’s veils had gone, intravenous drugs were delivered in bags rather than bottles and terminologies had changed.
Helen worked part-time on night shifts for nine years so that she could balance work and childcare. Upon moving to Auckland in 1984, she then decided to pursue legal work. She began by volunteering in Neighbourhood Law Office, but eventually ended up working in mental health law. In the latter role Helen worked with clients at Kingseat Hospital in South Auckland. Her work often involved representing patients who had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Helen drew upon her experiences as a nurse in her legal work, especially when she was working as legal aid for mental health patients. She explains that there were times when her medical background enabled her to ‘understand more than many lawyers’ and help clients in a ‘particular sort of way’.
