The Timaru Herald. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1921. Nothing too Good for Them.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 170140, 17 February 1921, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1921. Nothing too Good for Them.

It is pleasant to be able to record an improvement in tlie working conditions of the nursing profession. At the meeting yesterday of the Hospital Board a circular letter was received from the Director of Hospitals, asking that each nurse (and probationer?) should have a clear day off duty each week, and a minimum annual holiday of twenty-one days. And as a request of that kind is really an instruction, the re> ferring' of it to the Visiting Committee could hardly be more than a formality. Everyone knows that a day off in seven is necessary if nurses are to retain their health and spirits; and if there is any one who supposes that three weeks is too big a break after twelve months of duty, we wish him no evil, since wishing evil is sin—but wo hope it will please Providence to correct him a little painfully. Meanwhile it is interesting to note that the Matron-in-Chief of Hew Zealand hospitals spent a recent vacation in Australia, and apparently improved the glaring hours a little by investigating conditions in the hospitals of the Commonwealth. On the vexed question of salaries, she found that if it is possible to do a little growling still in Hew Zealand, it is not possible to point enviously over the water. Hew Zealand nurses _ are beiter paid during their training, and better paid after their training is completed. They are farther away, too, from entrancefees, premiums, and all those other impositions of the bad old days. So also they have a better social and professional status if for no other reason than because they have State registration. But Australia has the advantage in hours of duly. In Sydney, for example, the rule is 52 hours a week, one-and-a-hnlf days off each week, and seldom more than nine hours on the remaining five days and a half. T( would appear, also, that the salaries of matron* arc more generous.

Brit if it is comforting- to know tliat in most respects New Zealand does not lag beliind, it is clear that we cannot be content while a single matron, nurse or probationer has more work than she can safely do, less pay than would be accepted for much less responsible duties, and more uncertainty as to her future than a typist, a milliner, or a saleswoman. For a month or two, as everybody knows, our local Board will have to be fed by tbe ravens, Sand it is not quite clear yet that tire ravens will fly. But there is a salaries notice of motion before members now, and it is to be hoped that the Board will approach this next month with a sufficiently generous imagination. It must iuot be forgotten that nurses are not workers in any ordinary sense, but devotees.