Name/TitleBadge: Nurses Board South Australia - Registered Mental Nurse (RMN) and Registered Nurse (RN) Badge

About this objectThe Nurses Registration Act was passed in 1920. After this year all qualified nurses were registered and issued with a badge by the Nurses Board of South Australia (NBSA).

Both badges are circular with a small crown at the top, The RMN badge is made of gold plated base metal with turquoise blue enamel border and shield. The reverse is engraved ‘MP Byrne’ ‘ 147’. The RN badge is a silver colour metal with black enamel. The reverse is engraved with 'MP Byrne' '3722'.

Nurse M. P. Byrne graduated from Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1940.

Reference : 'They became Nurses' by Joan Durdin, published 1991.
In 1922 The Enfield Receiving Home opened to provide for the observation and treatment of voluntary patients, it also offered training for nurses for the Mental Nurse register. In 1929 the Northfield Mental Hospital opened with female and male nurses. To apply for registration as a Mental Nurse, staff had to attend lectures and pass the examinations. The three years of training were set out as three sets of twelve lectures, the first year Anatomy and Physiology, second year general nursing, then the third year on mental disorders.

The book quotes Vera Gibbs, who had trained at Parkside in the 1930’s; ‘nurses were astonished to find that the teaching about psychiatric illness came late in the training, trainees learnt from the staff nurses, expert in in their own areas and taught by example. My main satisfaction came from questioning staff nurses, who had finished a three-year course of training and did not go on to general nursing, remaining as psychiatric nurses. Some were there for twenty years. They knew every patient and the patients knew them”

In 1966 the Nurses Board set up separate registers, with the first graduations of Psychiatric Nurses and Mental Deficiency Nurses. The title Mental Nurse was no longer used.

MakerS. Schlank & Co (S .S & Co)

Maker RoleManufacturer

Date MadeCa 1941

Place MadeAdelaide, Australia

Medium and Materialsbase metal, enamel

MeasurementsL 3cm x W 2.4cm

Subject and Association KeywordsNurse Education and Training

Object TypeBadges

Object numberAR#1002