NURSES’ SALARIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22613, 16 April 1948, Page 6

NURSES’ SALARIES

INCREASE GRANTED OVERTIME AND HOLIDAYS (P.A.) WELLINGTON. April 15. The new scale of salaries and conditions for nurses employed by Hospital Boards was announced by the Minister of Health. It includes provision for the payment of overtime for hours in excess of 40The full 10 per cent, overtime will be payable for four or more hours over the hours overtime in a week with a smaller percentage for hours under four. The Minister commented that, under the present conditions, the majority of nurses would receive overtime. When a nurse lives out. she is to receive. in addition, an allowance varying in different centres from £BB "to £ll4 a year for board and lodgings. All institutional nurses on full-time employment are supplied with uniforms and are also entitled to a free issue annually of two pairs of duty shoes and six pairs of duty stockings. Annual Leave The annual leave schedule is 23 days for hospital aids, pupil nurses, pupil nursing aids and maternity trainees, 35 days for district nurses in rural areas on call seven days a week and for registered staffs of maternity hospitals and tutor sisters and 28 days for all other classes of nurses. The scale of sick leave Is related to length of service and ranges from four weeks on full pay and four weeks on half pay in any one year for nurses with services up to four years, to a year on full pay for nurses with more than 30 years’ service. There is also provision for sick leave with pay up to eight days a year in circumstances where it is necessary for a nurse to be off duty and additional sick leave with pay is granted*where the sickness arises from the nurse's employment. New Rates of Pay

The new rates are as follows, the old rates being given in parentheses: Pupil nurses, £lls to £145 (£IOO to £130); staff nurses, £175 to £195 (£155 to £175); ward and departmental sisters, £215 to £315 (£195 to £285); a member of a maternity hospital staff qualified as a registered nurse and registered midwife, £255 to £355 (£215 to £305); member of a maternity hospital staff qualified as a registered nurse and registered maternity nurse, £225 to £325 (£205 to £295); maternity nurse trainees, if already qualified as registered nurses, £175 (£130). There is a special rate for certain matrons and sisters in charge of tuberculosis institutions, and all other_ nurses in such institutions receive £25 additional to the corresponding rates in general hospitals (at present sisters in tuberculosis annexes receive an additional £lO but other staff members receive nothing additional). Extra payment for night staffs remains substantially as at present. The salary increments for pupil nurses will be £lO. In ell other examines quoted, the increase will be £2O.