Evening star., 1943-10-13
DC. Expected
To Fill Quota
OF War Nurses
181 Senior Students
Recently Took
Re9istery Test

Eellef that the District will supply
It's l943 quota of nurses for war
service, though it so far has fur
nlshed only 81 per cent and is fur
ther behind than any State, was
expressed today by Miss Edith M
Beattie. executive secretary of the
local Nursing Council for War
Service.
Miss Beattie pointed out that 1S1
senior student nurses-the largest
group in the history of the District
took the registered nursing exam
1nation given two weeks ago by the
Nurses Examining Board Many of
these, young and unmarried, prob
ably will enter the armed services
she said
In addition. many practicing
nurses here are expected to be drawn
into war service, as a result of the
survey of horsepower" recently be-
gun by the District Committee of
the Procurement and Assignment
Service.
Call to Duty" Seen.
Beginning with hospitals, the local
procurement and assignment group
is in the process of classifying all
nurses in the District as to their
availability for duty with the armed
forces and their present essentially.
While those classed AS available for
war service are under no compul-
sion, it is expected many will accept
such rating as call to duty, Miss
Beattie said.
Meanwhile, a survey of officials of
nurses groups provided several eX-
plantations for the Districts slow
progress toward filling it's war nurse
quota.
A high percentage of the nurses
here are married, and many of these
have small children Miss Beattie
more than one-fourth of the 800
private Guty nurses-the class most
numerous in the DiStrict-will be
found eligible for war service. The
rest are either over As years of age,
are married with children under IA.
or have physical disabilities which
would disqualify them.
Transient Population.
Another official suggested that the
District. with large transient or
semitransient' population probably
has failed to receive credit for some
nurses who have left jobs here to
enter war service. because they have
returned to their home States to
enlist.
In addition. the District has re-
eeived no credit for enlistments of
nurses who work here but live in
nearby Maryland or Virginia. Eff
forts to determine how much quota
credit has been lost in this manner
now are being made by District or
carnations.
Although the District is credited
with only l55 nurse enlistments this
year, against its quota of 430. hos
pitals here are facing severe short
age of nursing help, the survey in
dicated
This paradoxical situation is
largely an outgroWth of other war
time problems The shortage of
maids and cooks and insuffciency
of laundry facilities have forced a
large number of married nurses. be-
cause of their home responsibili-
ties" to withdraw from service or to
limit themselves to part-time nurs-
ing, several officials agreed.
Analysis Waited.
The District Procurement and
Assignment Committee, which last
week surveyed nursing needs in the
hospitals, has made no report, pend
ing analysis Of the information OBJ
tanned One official estimated to-
day, however. that total of so to
60 private DUTY" nurses each day
do general floor duty III the hospi
tails to supplement the depleted
regular nursing staffS.
Another official said 90 to 30 calls
for private duty nurses-the maj jor-
ity of them cases involving critically
i'll patients-remain untitled here
daily
To combat the shortage a continu-
ing effort is being made to persuade
former nurses to return to service.
Approximately 200 have resumed
nursing work within the last 18
months. as the result of previous
pleas, it was estimated.