GREAT NEED FOR NURSES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3118, 23 June 1917, Page 6

GREAT NEED FOR NURSES

WAR OFFICE SEEKS AID FROM AUSTRALIA. Melbourne, Juno 9. One of the greatest needs of the Imperial authorities at the present time is an increased supply of trained nurses for service in British military hospitals. The War Office has looked to Australia for help, and already nearly a thousand nurses have left the Commonwealth for duty in tho British Army Nursing Service. They had been loaned to the British authorities by the Commonwealth, although enrolled and paid as members of the Australian military nursing staff. Further assistance is now required by tho British Army authorities, and the opinion is held by Surgeon-General Fethorston, Director-General of Medical Services in Australia, that the Commonwealth should rise to tho occasion. Hβ estimated yesterday that an additional 200 nurses could be niado available for military duty, if the various hospitals which now required probationary nurses to undergo a four years' course were to reduoe the period of training by one year. He stated that, in his opinion, three years was a sufficiently long period in which to train any nurse. The longer course insisted upon. by some hospitals was not arranged in tho interests of tho nurses, but solely in the interests of'tho hospitals concerned, as it compelled a probationer to work during her fourth year for much less pay than she could earn outside a hospital. Ho considered that nurses in all hospitals during their period of training were subjected, under tho cloak of charity, to tho grossest forms of sweating both as dn regard to pay and the number of hours worked. Further, they wero being sweated by the addition of an extra year to their training. In Borne hospitials probationers received no salary at all during tho wholo of their course.' At tho best they were paid at something liko tho rate of £12 per annum for tho first year—after serving three months or so for nothing, .£ls the second year, ,£2O tho third year, and, perhaps, a little moro than £20 where there was a fourth year. The salary was rai'oly as much as would bo paid to ordinary wardsmaids, and tho hours were longer. He mentioned these facts incidentally. As a medical man ho had no hesitation in saying that a three years' course was quite long enough for tho training of a nurse. General Fethorston mentioned that no fewer than 1727 nurses had already leffl Australia for sorvico ovoreeae, while a further 36i wore at present under orders to embark, making a total in all of 2091. In Australia between 300 and 400 nurses wero required to staff tho various military hospitals. Of tho nurses enrolled, about one-third of the total had been drawn from Victoria, one-third from New Soutli Wales, and the remainder from the remaining portions of Australia. Actually not more than SOO or 900 of the nurses sent overseas were serving with purely Australian units. Tho romaindor wore working for tho. Imperial authorities. They had sent 200 nurses to India, and the , 36l nurses now awaiting embarkation would proceed to Salonika, whcTO they would form t.hq ontiro nuTsing staff for four big Imperial hospitals. Others were working with tho Imperial hospitals in England and France, and on Imperial hospital ships. In addition, a considerable number of nnirses were at present at sea. At the end of last year a very full and thorough investigation was made into the number of nurses available in Australia for service overseas. It was then ascertained that, roughly, 1100 were available, and so far only 600 of these had been called up, so there were fully 400 to 500 nurses still available in Australia. That estimate did not take into account tho large numbers who since that date had volunteered, nor those who had .passed their final examination recently; At least 500 'nurses passed their final examination each yenr, and , the great majority of them were only too willing to servo in the Army Medical Corps. .The information furnished by General Fetherston was given with tho consent of. tho Minister of Defence, who concurred with tho viow that the hospitals should help in the present crisis by' reducing the training course of nurses from four years to three years.