That was the thrust of a speech by Mrs. Deborah Carr, executive director of the Employee Assistance Programme of Bermuda.

Mrs. Carr told the Bermuda Nurses Association's dinner meeting last week that some ten percent of nurses in America were believed to suffer from personal problems, including alcohol and drug abuse.

These problems, which also included marital discord, emotional and cash difficulties, were serious enough to affect job performance.

Mrs. Carr's statistic was taken from an article, "Avoiding the Pitfalls'', by a male nurse, Mr. Mike Van Doren, who is the programme director of the Texas Peer Assistance Programme for Impaired Nursing (TPAPIN).

Mr. Van Doren stated: "Conservative estimates say that ten percent of the nurses in Texas will be impaired during their career.'' Mrs. Carr, a registered nurse who has been a substance abuse and chemical dependency clinician and diagnostician for 18 years, was stressed the figure only gave a national United States perspective.

"It was in no way reflective of the nursing population of Bermuda or their representative organisation,'' she said. "The intent of the communication was to bring to an audience of nurses the awareness that the problem of dependency does affect all walks of life.''