Hospital Meals For Nurses?

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30725, 14 April 1965, Page 22

Hospital Meals For Nurses?

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON,

April 13.

The Government’s decision to reverse the intention to charge hospital medical staff for meals and room cleaning was welcomed by the president of the Labour Party (Mr N. E. Kirk).

“It is hard to understand why the Government ever wanted to inflict this and other charges—but it did, and has only now acted after spirited and widespread protest,” he said. Mr Kirk said it was still not clear from the announcement whether this restoration of an established right was to extend to members of the nursing profession. “If it does not it should—and at once,” he said. “Nor is this the only feature of New Zealand’s health services to which the Govern-

ment should devote some sympathetic thought. “High on the list of things which need attending to is the matter of increasing the payment from the Social Security Fund to doctors, in order that charges to patients may be abated.” he said. Mr Kirk said the Government should certainly not allow this and other matters to drift along unattended until they became the source of strong protests. “If it does, it will only allow the unrest and dissatisfaction with and within our health services to grow. “Already Government policy as applied by the Minister of Health has caused a lot of bother, and it is in the interests of the people and the health services that this should not continue,” he said. Mr Kirk described the Government’s recent decision to compel medical staff to pay for meals provided during duty hours as “an irksome and petty imposition on a group of people rendering magnificent public service.” Commenting on the Govern-

ment’s decision today to reverse its decision, Mr Kirk said: “Such grudging response does little to quell the uneasiness Government attitudes have created within our health services.” The Minister of Health (Mr McKay) announced in a statement today that the Cabinet had decided hospital boards could continue to provide free meals to house surgeons, senior house officers and hospital registrars where they are required to remain in the hospital over normal meal hours.