HOSPITAL REFORM

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 160, 2 April 1921, Page 12

HOSPITAL REFORM

Sir—You, together with several of your correspondents, will no doubt bo gratified to learn that this morning there was posted at the Nurses’ Home of the Wellington Hospital a notice to the effect that henceforth nurses will lie granted one day’s holiday leave per fortnight. Hitherto, as you are aware, tho nursing staff has worked for seven days per week, an average of ten hours per day throughout the year, with tho exception of three weeks’ leave at the end of each year s service. The Dominion and many of its correspondents, including the writer, have, for some years expressed disapproval of this servitude, and at last our endeavours have been rewarded.. It is now appropriate to give credit to the person or persons responsible for this niuch-needed reform, but I am in a dilemma as to whom the palm should be awarded. Those members of the Hospital Board, who have appeared mostly in print in connection with discussions at the board meetings arc the Rev. H Van Staveren, Messrs. C. H. Chapman aiid F. Castle, but if these gentlemen are to be credited, then they have, like tho executioner in the "Yeopian of the Guard,” "flattered by innuendo,’ in other words, they have decapitated the proposals for reduced working hours for nurses whenever they were made. The Rev. IL Van Staveren at the Hospital Board meeting in November characterised the advocates of reform as “Gadflys without backbone who .die witbin six months.” Mr. C. H. Chapman stated that tho criticism' of the absence of rest davs for nurses "were all' unfounded (vide The Dominion, November 28), and Mr. F. Castle,'at the November meeting of the board, presented a report io the effect that the nurses’ daily duties consisted of about seven hours’ leisurely sauntering. Thus, these throe gentlemen were self-admitted enemies of the reform which has now been effected. As regar,ds awarding tho credit to the professional heads of the’ Hospital, Dr. IVoodhouse, medical superindent, and the matron (Miss Stott), I fear again there is entire absence of one published word that either of them have supported the movement; but. on the othei- hand, communications to tho board from both have appeared in The Dominion, in which the seven days’ continuous servitude for eleven months and one week per annum has received their approval, and advocates of reform, especially the writer, have from the first-named received hard words (see The Dominion of Saturday, Norember 27). . , Bavin" failed to discover the benefactor, and, as an election for a new Hospital Board is approaching, I believe that the time is opportune for the Rev. IT ’ Van Staveren and Messrs. C. H. Chapman and F. Castle to put themselves right with the electors as regards their attitude in connection with this muchoverdue, but at Inst accomplished, Wellin"ton Hospital reform.. —T am, etc,. HOSPITAL REFORM. March 25,' 1921.