Nurses On Hunger Strike To Protest About Food

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30630, 22 December 1964, Page 17

Nurses On Hunger Strike To Protest About Food

C.V.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

PERTH, Dec. 21 Student nurses at Royal Perth Hospital began a hunger strike at breakfast today.

Early this morning a nurses’ representative asked Matron M. Johnson to appeal to the administration about the “appalling quality” of their food.

Rebellious groups of nurses gathered in the dining room, the nurses’ home, and round the hospital and hungry night duty nurses sipped a cup of tea and refused to eat anything. A third-year nurse said: “We will hold out as long as we can, but nurses’ work is hard and most haven’t enough money to eat outside. Also there is nowhere to eat when you’re on night duty and we aren’t allowed outside the hospital in our uniforms.” Nurses said the food was

steam cooked in bulk. It had no taste and was inedible. By the time it reached them the nutriments had gone. They needed better food and so did the patient. The nurse who organised the petition said her resignation went with the appeal to the matron because she regretted that the matter which was to be purely an internal matter had become public knowledge. Last year after a big meeting on December 9, the food improved for a couple of weeks and then went back to the old bad standard. Some student nurses were not taking part in the strike. They seemed generally to support the claim that the food was of poor quality but disagreed with the strike and thought the appeal lacked organisation.