"INADEQUATE PAY."!

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 19, 24 January 1939, Page 13

"INADEQUATE PAY."!

MEMBER'S CRITICISM. SHORTAGE OF NURSES. REPORT TO HOSPITAX BOARD. Inadequate rates of pay are blamed by Dr. J. P. Hastings as being respon- j sible for the present shortage of nurses. He made that observation to the Auckland Hospital Board. last evening, when the board was considering a letter from the Xew Zealand Trained Masseurs' Association asking that salaries for its members should be standardised through, out the Dominion. The salary asked was £260 per year, rising by £13 a year to £325. The request was referred to the finance committee for report. Reporting on this letter the medical superintendent, Dr. J. W. Craven, drew a comparison between the salaries of masseuses and nurses. He onsidered that the rates of pay for masseuses should be standardised, at least in the four! main centres, but did not agree with the rates of pay recommended. "The cotirse of training in Dunedin is two years and the total cost, including keep, is, I understand, in the vicinity of £250," he stated, referring to masseuses. "The fuccessful candidates can register at the age of 21 and they commence here at £234, rising to £273 per annum in threA years. They work five days and a half a week, totalling 39 hours and get three weeks' holiday every year in addition to all public holidays. Also, they have no night work. These facts compared with a nurse's life show that the masseuses .are much more generously treated. "A nurse has to spend three years and three months in training before she can register and complete four years in this hospital in order to get her hospital certificate. Immediately ghe becomes & registered nurse she receives only £95 a year, with an extra £91 per annum if she lives out as the masseuses do and gets three weeks' holiday a year. That

is to say~fhe receives * maximum of £186 after four yearn' training compared' with the masseuse who gets £234 after twja years* training. "A junior, sister- gets £120 six years after she commences her training, and a senior sister after 15 years' service and experience in a ward only gets £190, with £91 extra in both cases if they live out—a difference in tlie case of the senior sister of only £8 in salary and 12 more years' service. Sisters get four weeks' leave per annum. All members of the nursing staff have to work on public holidays a* required and they also have to "do night duty. "It will, I think, be found that the rates of pay and conditions of service in other branches of female work do not compare favourably with similar terms for masseuses," said Dr. Craven. "Therefore I am compelled to state that I can find no reason for supporting the contention of the New Zealand Trained Masseurs' Association that the salaries paid should be materially increased."