GRANTS TO NURSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25385, 17 November 1943, Page 5

GRANTS TO NURSES

EVENT OF CONTRACTING ... DISEASE At the monthly meeting of the Waitaki Hospital Board yesterday morning Mr N. 11. Colquhoun brought forward a remit which the Otago Board has decided to place before the conference of hospital boards t'o be held in Dunedin on February 1 of next year. Briefly, the remit concerns tne present system of making grants to nurses who contract a disease while employed as a nurse, or within 12 months of being so employed. Under the present system the grant’ depends on the decision of the Hospital Board in question, with the approval of the Minister. The Otago Board maintains that the present rule should be amended to make these grants mandatory for boards, and, further, that the Government be requested to issue an Order-in-' Council declaring any infectious disease contracted on duty by . a member of a nursing staff to be a disease arising out of employment in terms of the Workers Compensation Act, and within the operation of that Act. . .. , . Mr Colquhoun moved that the Waitaki Hospital Board support this remit at the conference ni Dunedin. The motion was seconded by Mr H. C. Jeffery and carried.