Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 26, 1947 SERVICE AND REWARD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 99, 26 February 1947, Page 4

Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. WEDNESDAY, FEB. 26, 1947 SERVICE AND REWARD

NO section of the community is more entitled to the benefits of a 40-hour week than hospital nurses. Unfortunately, owing to the ever-increasing demands on hospital services, brought about very largely by the social security scheme, and the difficulty of securing sufficient entrants to the nursing profession at a time when other callings offer more attractive remuneration and conditions of work, it is not possible to apply reduced hours without .seriously impairing the efficiency of the service. That being so, there is a clear case for reviewing the salaries paid to nurses and other hospital employees on the basis of a 40-hour week. If hospital staffs must work in excess of forty hours a week—and in existing circumstances there appears to be no alternative — then bare justice demands that they should receive compensation for the disadvantages under which they are labouring. As things are at present, the only possible compensation is increased pay, and in that delegates to the annual conference of the Hospital Boards’ Association are agreed. It is reasonable, then, that any obstacles that may stand in the way of all-round improvements in the remuneration of nurses and other members of hospital staffs should be speedily removed. Although the desire to give service has, in the past, been the principal inducement for girls to enter the nursing profession, and, no doubt, still is in the majority of cases, it is no longer possible to disregard the material element. Today so- many avenues of highly-paid and attractive employment, calling for no specialised training are open to girls and women that it is little wonder that difficulty is experienced in obtaining sufficient girls to staff the public hospitals. If social services cannot compete with industry in salaries and conditions, their efficiency must suffer and in the long run the health and well-being of the community must suffer. A closely-related question touched on by Miss Lambie, Director of the Nursing Division, in her address to the hospital boards’ conference is the standard of nursing. Naturally, Miss Lambie is anxious that the standard should be as high as possible, and with this view there will be general agreement. There is, however, one factor that cannot be overlooked, and that is the possibility that the amount of study which a pupil nurse is required to undertake may dissuade some young women from entering the profession. Miss Lambie suggests, as one method of overcoming this, pre-nursing courses in secondary schools for girls who have reached the age of 16. This, coupled with an assurance of better salaries and improved working conditions, would no doubt assist greatly in solving a problem which has been with us for a long time and which must be overcome if hospital and other social services are to operate efficiently. If the standard of nursing is to be raised or even maintained and if the staffing difficulty is to be overcome, there must be every inducement for the best type of girls to enter the service—-inducements which will give them the opportunity of realising their ambition to serve in one of the highest of callings and, at the same time, will not demand that the ambition shall be realisable only at the cost of heavy material sacrifice.

Trolley-Bus Service ' A cable has been received from Britain stating that the first shipment of trolley-bus chassis for Wellington will be leaving the works for dispatch to New Zealand this month. They were originally promised for last May, but owing to the state of business at Home, in addition to, the fact that Crossley Motors are shifting their works, their delivery has been delayed. The date of shipment is not yet stated, but shipping is not anticipated to present any serious difficulty. Practically all the poles in the city are up, but it has not been considered wise to erect the head wires until the passenger service is nearer possibility. The rosettes are on' the buildings, however, and when the chassis arrive and have been assembled the commencement of a partial service will not be long delayed.

A New Dish In the course of an address to fruitgrowers in Hastings recently, Mr J. H. Parker, assistant manager of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation, who recently returned from a visit to Britain and America, made reference to the food shortage in Britain. He described sausages in Britain as bread in battledress, and in reference to* queues, he instanced the case of a man who joined in a queue of 700 and waited for two hours for a pound of New Zealand apples and then never got them. Mr Parker also mentioned another queue which was joined by a woman whose first query was as to what the queue was for. One “wag” told her it was for “Tales of Hoffman,” and her reply was: “Oh, I must get some of those. My husband is so- hungry he’ll eat anything.”