Nurses’ pay

Press, 20 April 1982, Page 20

Nurses’ pay

Sir,—Mrs Ann Hercus’s statement that "nurses have always been the hardest working and most poorly paid health specialists” cannot go unchallenged. Practice nurses employed by general practitioners now- receive at least $7.88 an hour or $16,455 a year. Their workload is not excessive, there are usually no shifts or week-end work, and their responsibility to patients ceases when they leave the doctor’s surgery. The health specialist who sees 80 per cent of all illness is the general practitioner. A young doctor entering general practice after nine years of training is unlikely to achieve this kind of income for some time. With no holiday, sick pay, or paid study leave, the need to provide week-end and night services, and with overheads at 50 per cent of the gross income, it would be difficult to achieve the $35,000 a year before expenses which would be needed to match the take-home pay of the nurse he employs—Yours, etc, E. D. TURNER. ' April 16, 1982.