THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1909. EIGHT HOURS FOR HOSPITAL NURSES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9665, 2 December 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1909. EIGHT HOURS FOR HOSPITAL NURSES.

I It is decidedly the reverse of an amusing commentary upon our labour legislation that the average working day of a man should be of eight hours duration, while those noble women who undertake the arduous duty of nursing the sick in our public hospitals do, and worse still are expected to by many individuals, perform their i duties for a number of hours far in excess of eight per diem. "Why?" is the question that everyone must ask when the fact is mentioned, and the only excuse that can be given is that the maintenance of the hosptals would be more costly were shorter hours to be worked by the nurses. The explanation is one that may be brushed aside with a feeling akin to contempt. In the Hospital and Charitable Aid Bill now before Parliament there is a provision that nurses shall not work more than 56 hours in any one week: this provision, it may be remarked in passing, allows nurses to be worked for eight hours per day, including Sunday, while the average male worker would be more than indignant if he were expected to work longer than 48 hours per week, and on Sunday as I well. A deputation, nowever, has I seen fit to oppose the provision, and it waited the other day on the Wellington Hospital Trustees, and said that the Wellington Nurses Association was impressed with the need for expedition in opposing the ; clause, and seeing that the chairman of the trustees was a Legislative Councillor, the deputation had come to the trustees in the hope that valuable time might be saved. It was felt that in the nursing profession no strict rule as to hours should be laid down; it was a profession in which restricted hours could not apply. In the first place, to do so would necessitate nurses working in two shifts, involving a duplication of present staffs, and also of accommodation. This would prove very

exjiet-sive to country and provincial hospitals, and in some instances

would make maintenance of the institutions extremely expensive or impossible. Secondly, it woulrl be

necessary to employ two supervising sinters in each ward, instead of cue as at present. Thirdly, the association considered than an eight-hours day would mean diminished pay for nurses. We do not wish to discount the good motives that prompted the deputation, but their arguments cannot be seriously entertained. As to a decrease in hours meaning diminished pay for nurses, it shoulj not entail any such hardship, and it is the duty of the Legislature to se. j . that nothing of the kind occurs. Now, we come back to the objection previously alluded to, that the Dominion, which is financially strong enough to present a Dreadnought to the British Navy cannot afford to allow its women, who are engaged in the n ible profession of nursing, ti work reasonable hours —the interests of ca-h demand that these women must b3 overworked! Wi are afraid that in many instances those who have the management ot hospitals are to blame fur this cry of cost. In how ; i many cases, »we woulil like to ask. Ido dilatory trustees allow patients, who should be made to pay, to escape their financial obligations to the hospital, where they have been scientifically treated, and tenderly nursed from sickness into a state of robust health? How many thousands of pounds have been lost to the revenue of the hospitals byjhe cause mentioned? Freu hospital treatment is quite right and proper for people who really cannot afford to pay the modest fees asked, but the erroneous, and somewhat widespread impression that hospital treatment should be free, and that it i' a hardship to be compelled to pay for medical attendance and nursing is one that should be firmly suppressed. If it is true that the country cannot afford to pay its hospital nurses unless they work an unreasonable number ot hours per day, then the reasons thereof are that our hospitals are run on an entirely wrong principle, and are generally mismanaged. When the Bill, to which we have referred, comes before Parliament, we trust that the members of that assembly will recognise the duty that they owe to their sisters in the nursing profession, and vote solidly for the clause objected to by the deputation.