POORLY PAID

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 171, 22 July 1942, Page 3

POORLY PAID

JUNIOR NURSES CONCERN FOR TRAINEES "Poorly paid" was how Mr. H. J. Drabble described the salary of junior purses at a meeting of the Hawera Hospital Board this week, when consideration was given recommendations of the New Zealand Hospital Boards' Association. The payment of £82 a year to a nurse who had completed three years' service, as recommended in the association's schedule of new rates of pay, was considered very small by Mr. Drabble, who urged that the board should make an effort to pay its employees better salaries. "A girl can get three times as much as this dishing out lollies on a 40-hour week," said another member. "I think nurses are getting quite enough while they are being trained," said the matron, Miss M. J. Fraser. "It makes it worthwhile for them to qualify." Mr. Drabble said the highest salary received by a nurse was not nearly as high as in other professions, and for that reason, too, much stress should not be placed upon the value of the training period as a preparation for the future. School teachers taught for 25 hours a week and they were a long way better paid than nurses, said Mr. Thrush. "After listening to the matron I think we would be well advised to leave the salaries as they are in the association's schedule," said the chairman, Mr. Campbell, but after a further discussion it was decided to adopt the association's recommendations with certain increases in the lower scales of pav.