NURSES' SALARIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 84, 10 April 1945, Page 6

NURSES' SALARIES

BOARD ANSWERS CRITIC Reference to a letter to the Star, in which pay increases for nurses was criticised, was made at a meeting of the Auckland Hospital Board last night by Mr. J. Grierson, chairman of the finance committee. The correspondent had stated: "The proposed new schedule of salary increases of the hospital staff recently submitted to the board by the finance committee makes very interesting reading. I observe that increases in pay include £825 for medical and professional, £895 for technicians, £484 for clerical, £70 for domestic, and £42 for nursing. Presumably this £42 is to be divided proportionately between all the nursing staff." Mr. Grierson commented that the Stabilisation Commission approved, last year, a classified scale of salaries for nursing staffs of all hospital boards throughout New Zealand. The Auckland Hospital Board adopted this scale, resolving that the nurses in the employ of the board should, at all times, receive the maximum annual increase allowed. The addiT tional cost of this scale for the financial year ended March 31, 1945, was estimated at £17,300. "The £42 referred to, affecting the salaries of only four members of the nursing staff, is additional to the automatic scale increases amounting to over £10,000 for the current financial year, and is recommended, subject to the approval of the Wages Commissionei', for the purpose of removing anomalies," added Mr. Grierson. "It seems that the less a person knows about hospital affairs, the better qualified he is to criticise," stated the chairman, Mr. Allan J. Moody.