THE NURSING PROFESSION

Evening Star, Issue 17087, 4 July 1919, Page 3

THE NURSING PROFESSION

QUESTION OF REMUNERATION. The Minister of Public Health was interviewed at Wellington yesterday by members of the Industries 'Committee, in their capacity as members of Parliament, relative to the pay, hours, and general conditions applying to mirsea in the public hospitals of Now Zealand. The deputation represented to the Minister that the pay was altogether inadequate for probationers. With -the high cost of living the girls could not keep themselves in clothing without considerable- help from their people. Members urged that £1 per week be paid for tho first year, and increases bo also made to first and thirdyear nurses, who were receiving £BO to £IOO a year, which was not sufficient. Many of the matrons, also, were not receiving adequate payment. There was no overtime payment, and, owing to short staffing, duo to Jow pay, they had to work long hours and got no extra pay. The deputation also urged an increase in holidays for nurses to one month a year, and said it would be to their advantage if they were given two days off eacn month to save them from overstrain. The question of superannuation was also raißed. Tho Hon. Mr Russell, in replying, promised support to any progressive policy submitted to the Health Department. lie sympathised with the deputation regarding some matters it had spoken about. Probationers were learning a business, and could afterwards earn £3 3s per week at private nursing, or establish private hospitals in conjunction with doctors. There ought to be superannuation for nurses, but the trouble was that nurses were not Government officers. He was prepared to recommend that stops be taken to give superannuation to a woman who spent her life in hospitnl work, not private nursing. In the meantime a private fund wliich had been established by Dr Lindo Ferguson, of Dunedin, now amounted to £IO,OOO, and the Government proposed to subsidise every payment from it to the extent of 10s in the £. The idea of one month's leave .was a good one, and he would bring it before the Hospital Conference. If Parliament was prepared to grant the money necessary to raise the Hospital Board subsidy to, say, 255, they could' make the condition that an extra 6s was t<? be devoted to the nurses of the staff.