Nurses ‘backbone of health service’

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 3

Nurses ‘backbone of health service’

Nurses deserve salaries proportional to their skills and the care they give, according to Miss Shona' Carey, executive director of the New Zealand Nurses’ Association.

The association has defended nurses’ rights to salary increases after a statement by the Minister of Health (Mr Malcolm) at the association’s annual conference in Christchurch on Thursday. . Mr Malcolm said that “additional costs included in emSing nurses might very be denying the public of needed beds or of renal dialysis or cardiac surgery.” Miss Carey said nurses

were the backbone of the health service and had always been moderate and responsible in preparing claims for improved salaries and conditions of employment.

“We believe we have a continuing responsibility to seek adequate salaries for nurses as necessary,” she said.

“The health service is highly labour-intensive and so the amount of money spent on nurses’ salaries has always been significant,” she said.

In 1980, nurses comprised 58 per cent of the total professional manpower employed in the health service.

Miss Carey said that for many years nurses had subsidised New Zealand’s health system by working long hours for little reward and it was only in recent years they had received salary increases and improved working conditions.

The association was aware that financial resources were finite, and it was working for the most efficient use of the available manpower. “If the-Nurses’ Association did not seek adequate salaries for nurses it would be failing in its responsibility to the nursing profession in protecting standards of nursing care, which our patients have the right to receive,” Miss Carey said.