HOSPITAL BOARD EXPENDITURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 18 June 1932, Page 2

HOSPITAL BOARD EXPENDITURE

(To the Editor) Sir, —At a recent meeting of the Nelson Hospital Board the matter of a further reduction in salaries and wages was held over until after the Hospital Boards’ conference. The wisdom of that step is shown by a paragraph iii your local and general column in last Saturday’s “Mail.” At the said conference the Minister of Health referred to the question of salaries and wages. He said it was left open to boards to decide ' whether board and lodging should be taken into account in calculating reductions in the remuneration of nurses and others residing within the hospital, and added: “It is expected where a hoard does not reduce salaries that the equivalent of the reduction will he saved in other directions.” That statement from the

Minister makes the hoard’s duty perfectly plain and clear. If the actual wages now being paid to nurses are so small that the hoard cannot very well reduce them any lower, they can at least (and should, according to the Minister) put the nurses on cheaper rations. Anything in the nature of luxuries—such as biscuits and cheese — should he disallowed; meat and fish could be cut out excepting on Sundays, when two or three shins of beef should he ample; a few sacks of swedes and pumpkins would go a long way in taking the place of more expensive foodstuffs; and even the “apple a day” should he regarded as quite unnecessary. These are only a few helpful sugegstious that came to mind on reading the paragraph referred to. Doubtless the board’s delegates to the conference got many more helpful hints from the Minister. Tile farmers are up against it, and demand frigid economy in all local body administration; the general taxpayer is up against it; the Government is up against it; and the Hospital Board is badly up against it. (This is admitted seriously, and in all fairness). Why, then, shouldn’t the nurses’ he still more up against it, especially when it can be “put over” them without any danger of retaliation of any sort. It can he done so easily, for the nurses will not go on strike. They would never leave their sick and suffering charges no matter what treatment they may he subjected to in the name of “equality of sacrifice” (fine term that, so uplifting), and, if they left one by one, where could they find other employment in these times? — I am, etc., CUT, AND CUT AGAIN. Nelson, 12th June.