LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 53, 26 November 1920, Page 9

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE SHORTAGE OP HOSPITAL NURSES

Sir—ln the hope that tho thorough

ventilation of the questions governing the short supply of hospiihl nurses may lead to si'lrh improvements in tho condition of: work, pay, and hours as will remedy tlie present shortage, I venture to write.you .on the matter. To me it has been.obvious for many years vjiat the present shortage would occur sooner or later, nnd the reasons are not far to seek. • • The work is exceedingly hard both physically and mentally; even if the nominal eight hours is not exceeded, it takes an. exceptionally strong young woman, ih stand it for long, and as "Hospital Reform" points out, the nominal eight is-often extended' to a very real ten or twelve, and during the time there is no "go slow" or "Government stroke" —the work is being (lone nii high pressure mast of the time.

The conditions of employment in many hospitals are'far from attractive. For instance! the discipline demanded often is more suited to n boarding school than ifo a .bodv of partially or/fully trained women doing very responsible work. lii some hospitals, nurses are not permitted to leave the nursing homo' or hospital after their hours of woik without leave, and it is- not long since that in oiir.oJ our large hospitals nurses were required t!o stand with folded hands and bowed heads wheh the matron passed through the wards. : Again—and I think reform must begin herc-the week-end 1 bring? no relief. . For forty-nine consecutive weeks in each year, for 313 consecutive days, unless illness supervenes, the hospital' nurse docs her hard daily task—a half-day a week is her, only spell. .No full day's rest per week from the grinding toil of' Vie work; no occasional weekend in' tho country with friends or at home, with a lazy brenkfast-in-bed morning, that valuable help to the over-work-ed: no. chance to put her work belli ml her fqr adav, and forget it, relieves, the hbsnMnl nurse.- Unless iD.ness dent supervenes, fills must get through those 3J.3- consecutive days' work, and then out of her savings from her princely stipend.of J2O to .£9O per annum, she can take three weeks' holiday to get herself fit- for another fonty-nine weeks unbroken toil. No wonder, some members of .the'hospital boards feel justly (?) surprised and not a little indignant that our young women do not flock to enrol theniselv'es for such an ntiractive, "cushy" job as is offered in the above programme! Even under the best conditions. ' a nurse must give up a very [great deal.- She'cannot, as hours are now. golf or hockey, and .not much tennis. ' Her hours from week to week 6r : month to month, are so variable arid so'"'all. variance with ordinary working hours, that it is difficult for-a nurse to join with girls in other em-ployments-in the many, healthful 'and pleasant social occasions open to them, on '■ which they generally, sooner or later, meet ifne men-who will become their future 'husbands. Many of these drawbacks can .be wholly or.Wtially avoided, and' mist be, if the ranks of the nursing profession are to-be kept filled. t The'nav is poor. even, now a -probationer is 'often asked 1 to accept -C2O per annum in pnWic hospitals, while tho private hospvhls eivo per annum, andif there is,a shortage of ward-maids at .£65 per annum, the nurses have to do- tlm-ward-maids' work and their own, too. for. which they do not often get qyen the thanks of the board. ■As for iihe gross "sweating" of the St. Helens 'hosnKal probationer . who until recently paid a .£2O premium for .the privilege of working twelve months for nothing. and"still receives no salary, and pnvs ber own tram fares to her eases, and buys -her, own medical supplies, it is a crying scandal and has only existed because through this door alone can women enter :/lie ranks of the registered maternity nurses, and the New Zealand Government holds tho key. . The ultimate earning- of the hitrhl.w trained .nurse rarely exceeds and seldom reaches .£l5O per .annum, and after years of service' in our public hospitals she can retire when worn out on the oldago pension, ns'thore is no supevannna'.imn fund. . Such are fomc of the. conditions which; while they exist, must deter-girls .from entering, to. train for the' profession} or.'drive-.them out of..it a= soon as some less exacting avenue of employment offers th?m an escape nnd a means, of both earning a. liviiig and living foi-.somc-Hiing else than continuous bard .labour arid the love of her work. So .much for some,- probably the mam reasons for the'shortage of nurses, and all' the -insincere and erroneous statements of well-menning but ill-informed members of hospital boards in the world 1 will not nlter'facts. •The. above. sposuro of the reasons of the shoribge would bo no bclp if remedies- were not suggested, tmd. it was with the hope of stimulating thoipublic to some, action through the "medium of the Press that I sa-.l down to write thisl letter.'. First, and most essential, the hours of. work must ibe made reasonable, and tlie necessary day of rest per week, and a week-end or its equivalent once a month be given: with lihat will oome the possibility of some amount of reasonable social intercourse and recreation, a.ud tho'work will be less trying nnd irksome. ' It is now proposed that girls of eighteen he admitted as probationers; a very good idea-if iihe work of the pro-, batioiier is made suitable to .the physical capacity of such young women. The nrobationer in her first year is an apprentice, and as with other appren-' ticos her Jioiirs of work should be calculated, to'allow -of-the necessary hours -of study without exceeding her capacity .for work; or..unduly restricting lier .opportunities of reasonable recreation. Six or seven hours in .the wards and one-or two hours for study six days per week, 'making in all eight hours, is probably the limif of'tho capacity for tho. avorage girl of "that age. I' feel sui'e that if those who wished to were permitted to live at home, there-, by not .losing, .touch with their own circle of friends, and coming to the hospital for their work and classes, that many recruits-.would bo gained. For the first six or twelve months this could easily be arranged' without unduo difficulty, and is- or was cart of the practice at Bart s Training School for Nurses, where some of tho". nurses' were located qrtite apart from the ordinary nursing Nioine, ami came to and from their work' at the hospital, at- the' appointed hours. Out ■hero this would be an innovation, but I holievo a useful one. A reasonablo standard ot pay and an adequate superannuation pension would also do much to attract recruits and keep them when trained. I believe the 1 ospital Department- is doing its best, but it Is- terribly humpercu by_ appalling Wnorauce of hospital management, whioh of. necessity is part of tne conditions otmany members of tho hospital boards as at present--elected, not selected, for the.. U Another'soutco of training lias for years been neglected. 1 refr to the many 'excollohC private hospitals which get many promising probationers and train: them into highly efficient nurses, and rt tlio-Hcpnrlinoiit would allow these young women to count, say, two years of their lime m priva-lo hnspitals as part of thofr Mug bourse, .ttffljr would gam „,«,y splendid nurses to the ranks ot he regis-, tercd liosnilal nurse... At present if atjei' -ears of work those nurses wish come, registered, they must begin on it level with th« now probationer and ho under th? auntority of nurses often muchtheir interior in knowledge and experience The training given m ninny qmto small 'hospitals is often excellent, and movidin" the nurses from these could. ,ss their'first examination, say wi thin ?ec moulhs of entering a public ho* o Ul th'cv. should rank as second or third: vcar niiSos, nnd niter doing the balance. if heir tin o in a public hospital should t & to sit for their State examination, '"«i i! ai °y I,(lsSpu sl,ould '' irr'intca registration. XE55.K4 them the prpbationcre gcnornlly got a very t«orou„ii h nfng As things ore at private hospitals by reason ot bett i pa>. sml oleasauter conditions qf woik attract many probationers, who, niter a i fe ,v yews give up nursing because they. registration ceiMficates:,efincd? intelligent, edncnted girl from whom aiono good "»«« de ' lt - Nurs«s are just as unseltmh and selt-

sacnijemg in. the inlercst .of their paticrft'Tji's .thoy always have been, but it cannof be'oxpecled that they, should Menlies the whole of their lives to conditions imposed upon them by the action of file hospital boards who. chiefly througn jealousy of their supposed rights, iguorantly and often callously opposed tho HospitalDepnrhnont's efforts to improve tho BOiulitions «f our nurses m tho public hospitals. ,' Also file Separtment could do much" moro at the conference of hospital bonrds if it took care that tho employees, the nurso3, were represented as well as the emptoyors; so - far this fid's uover lieon done I must apologise-for fire length of this letter, but. the rcul urgency and importance of the matter, not only to hospital boards and doctors, but to the whole, of tho general, public, all nt least potentially patients, requiring nursing, must be my excuse, for ontering at 6ome. length into,a subject which has interested- m'B for many years, .both from- tho point of view of the public hospital superintendent' and as a private practitioner employing nurses,in my own private hospital. I hope thia letter will stimulate useful and. suggestive criticism of tho .present conditions of nurses' employment, so that those conditions 'Why bo so improved as to attract sufficient recruits to the profession more generally fitted for women than any other; a profession fitting them to lend useful lives, to be better wives, mothers, and- neighbours, a profession for <n woman which is always an asset to the community even when she ceases to practise it as. a means of livelihood, and wliich should be made a sufficiently good asset to. hor to make it possible for her to live a. reasonably healthy-and happy lifn by the fira'ctice of it nnd provde n sonable retiring allowance in her doclinirfg years.—l am, etc., T. L. PAGET. ■Ffilraerston North. November, 1920. ...