DEARTH OF NURSES

Evening Star, Issue 21099, 11 May 1932, Page 9

DEARTH OF NURSES

MORE NEEDED IN BRITAIN SUGGESTED INDUCEMENTS. Unless more young women in Britain are willing to become hospital nurses it will hardly be possible to protect hospital patients from suffering through lack of attention. This alarming prospect is revealed in the report of the ‘ Lancet ’ Commission on Nursing, appointed in December, 1930, to inquire into the reasons for the shortage of candidates. A London newspaper says: “The document is illuminating in its description of the archaic organisation that exists in many hospitals, and the petty tyrannies and old-fashioned restrictions tliat enchain the young probationer.” Suggestions made in the report to attract the modern girl to hospital work include: Better pay, shorter hours, longer holidays, better cooked food, more personal liberty, more opportunities for social life, fewer restrictions on smoking, uso of the telephone, and many other concessions that nurses in British hospitals have never had. The report recommends that the conditions of service should be altered to attract girls of a higher standard of education, those, for example, who remain at school until the age of eighteen. Other recommendations are: Staff nurses should be paid between £65 and £BO a year instead of £6O to £65 as is usual in the majority of hospitals. The span of work on day duty should nob exceed thirteen hours, with at least one and a-half hours allowed for meals.

Not loss than three clear hours off duty, independent of meal times, should bo allowed during the span every day. One free day each week should be allowed. Separate bedrooms should bo provided for nurses; adequate bathrooms and airy dining rooms. Varied and well-cooked diet should bo provided. The probationers should not have to retire before 10.30. Nurses’ homes should be run on informal lines as a hostel under a warden. Nurses should have freedom to go out when off duty before bedtime. The annual hpliday should be not less than three wciqfcs..