NEED FOR A BALANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 102, 27 October 1945, Page 6

NEED FOR A BALANCE

The difficulty experienced by the Wellington Hospital Board in obtaining sufficient nurses to maintain its services draws attention once more to the necessity for restoring a balance in industry. Until the balance is restored such problems are inevitable, and may < even be accentuated. If social services are to obtain the staff they require, without ■ recourse ;to man-power direction —and there are the strongest reasons why powers of direction should be revoked at the earliest possible moment —they must be in a position to compete with other forms of employment. Obviously they are not in that position today. It is true that nursing is not on all fours with other forms of employment. The nursing profession not only calls for special qualifications, but, by its nature, it makes an appeal to a special type—women who are less concerned about the monetary reward it brings than they are about the opportunity it provides of rendering one of the highest forms! of public service. At the same time, the material side cannot be overlooked, nor should it be. Women who enter the nursing profession are entitled to at least the same employment standards as obtain in other walks of life, and they are also entitled to be able to look forward to receiving a remuneration that will provide them with reasonable living standards and will compensate them for the arduous years they must spend in qualifying. It' is inevitable that while other forms of employment offer attractive working conditions and high rates of pay for jobs which call for no special skill or training there will be difficulty, in obtaining sufficient nurses, unless steps are taken to restore a balance between all forms of employment and in the general economic structure of the country. Action to achieve that must come from the Government.