One Day off Per Week

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume XIV, Issue 2, 1 April 1921, Page 97

One Day off Per Week

Auckland Nurses will be First to get it

Indications are that the Auckland Hospital Board will be the first to adopt the practice of giving nurses one clear day's holiday per week. Speaking to a 'reporter yesterday, the Minister of Public Health (Hon. C. J. Parr) stated that he had finally approved of a proposal of the Auckland Board to erect a building for the temporary accommodation of 24 nurses — the additional number required to enable the Board to give the time off referred to above. After the erection of the new Nurses' Home, the building that the Minister has just approved of will be used as a ward. The reform m the nurses' conditions of employment should take place m Auckland m three months' time, as the necessary accommodation should be available by then.

The Minister expressed the strongest approbation of the step the Auckland Board was taking. Other boards, he said, were considering the question, and were ffoing their best to meet the wishes of the Department. "There can be no doubt." said Mr. Parr, "that nurses have been overworked m the past. That is one of the reasons for which there was recently a shortage of them. Tarn informed m Auckland, where it is known that a day off is to be giren, suitable girls for the profession are applying m considerable numbers to be taken m for training. In fact, there is a waiting-list m Auckland now." —From "The Dominion," April Bth. [Note. — Auckland Hospital is not the only one now for which there is a waiting-list of probationers. Matters are improving m this respect. — Ed.]