Hospital Staff May Go Out For Meals

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30710, 27 March 1965, Page 1

Hospital Staff May Go Out For Meals

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, March 26. House surgeons and registrars may boycott the cafeteria at Wellington Hospital.

New regulations which take effect next Wednesday deprive junior staff of their present right to free meals while they are on duty and of having their rooms cleaned and beds made by hospital staff.

About 50 house surgeons and registrars discussed the new regulations at a meeting today. They decided they were not prepared to pay for meals while they were on duty. The charge will be 3s a meal. “If meals are not provided, we will just have to go out and seek alternative meals, and that would cause a lot of difficulty and disruption,” he said tonight. “The new charges take no cognisance of the reality of our work. Junior staff are being penalised for the fact

that they are providing a duty at late hours and at week-ends.” If house surgeons were called in the middle of a meal—as they often were—they would still have to pay for it.

Representatives of (he group hope to carry their protests to the Minister of Health (Mr McKay). He has already received protests from physiotherapists and occupational therapists that the new regulations will deprive some of them of a third week of annual leave.

The therapists have been offered the choice of remaining under the old regulations, on lower pay scales, or accepting the new regulations, which abolish most existing special allowances.