HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7387, 4 June 1887, Page 2

HOSPITAL EXPENDITURE.

TO THH HDITOB Sib, — In view of the motion to be proposed at the next meeting of the Board of Governors of our District Hospital by Mr. Isaao Bayly, re reduction of salaries of the .hospital staff, it may be interesting to the, ratepayers, already face to face with a special rate for tbe maintenance of the said hospital, to learn that in a well-known hospital in the West of Hospital, with an average number every week of 90 inpatients and 300 out-patients, the following are the salaries paid to the hospital staff : — Besident houEe surgeon, £100 a year with board and lodging ; he devotes the whole of his time to hospital dutieß.;matron, £75, with board and lodging ; head nurse, £60, with board and lodging ; assistant nurses, £20 each, with board and lodging, and uniform ; hospital porters, £20, with board- and lodging ; domestic servants, as cook^soullery maids, &c, £10 to £18 a year, with board and^ lodging. There is also a dispenser at £40 a year, without board and lodging, who has to devote the whole of his time to bis dutieß. If I am correctly informed, in the New Plymouth Hospital, where the average number of in-patients is 15 (a mere cottage hospital it would be called in England), the Hospital Surgeon, non-resident,-has £200 a year; the head nurse, or matron, £100 a year, with board and lodging- ; assistant nurse, £60 a year, with board and 3 lodging; assiptant male nurse;: or orderly; 6s a, day, with board and lodg\, ing; house servant, 10a a week, witn' board and lodging; washerwoman, 16s a week. Comment on this state of things is, I thinks needless. — I am, &c, - A Batepater. " Now Plymoath, June 4, 1887.