SHORTAGE OF NURSES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19806, 23 May 1934, Page 9

SHORTAGE OF NURSES

BETTER CONDITIONS URGED IN BRITAIN. LONDON, May 12. A grave shortage of nurses for the hospitals is rapidly developing in Britain, and the Government is shortly to be asked to try to make their lives more attractive, so that secondary school girls will be induced to take up the work. The Trades Union Congress intends to put forward a proposal for increasing the present pay of nursing staffs, for reducing their hours, and for providing them with more freedom and off duty privileges. “Many men prominent in the medical profession believe that the martinet manner of some of the matrons has a lot to do with the refusal of girls to become nurses,” a “Sunday Chronicle” representative was informed by a hospital surgeon. “It also has a lot to do with the decision of hundreds of probationers who give up their task and become typists or factory workers after their first few months’ experience in hospital.” He said that in most hospitals the probationers, instead of being allowed to concentrate on learning their profession and becoming efficient in tending the patients, were obliged to spend long periods scrubbing floors and polishing brasswork. Many hospitals find that the girls will not stay more than a few months at a time. Most institutions have now provided comfortable nurses’ homes for their staffs, but there are some where the nurses rarely get a moment away from the atmosphere of work.