Evening star., 1947-04-24
Letters to The Star
Better Pay Held Remedy for
Nurse Shortage


in The Star Of April Is, castigates the
"monopolistic' Nurses Examining Board
for its failure to approve the training of
practical nurses at Garfield Hospital. It
resolves the existing acute shortage of
"splendidly equipped nurses probably
the best trained in the world, : with the
statement that the public's ability to
meet the bill for higher wages for nurses
Is question. mo similar question ap-
parently arises in connection with coal
miners, steel and auto workers, nor the
voices with the smiles.)
Reasons for the nurse shortage are not
obscure, nor is this fight into medioc-
rity, which the Nurses Examining Board
Is striving to control. hard to follow.
The nursing shortage is due to the
increasing disparity between the great
cost in time, money and labor required
In becoming nurse and the low stipend
received for continued hard work after
graduation. The salaries are very low in
comparison with stenographers, ETC., who
have little instruction after leaving high
school and whose jobs as whole are
easier physically and mentally. The
disparity has been the same in the teach
ing profession, which finally is resorting
to strikes to gain its proper place in the
scheme OF things. The nursing profess
sion has q higher sense of duty and
responsibility to the public than almost
any other, hence 1t has not resorted to
this successful method of gaining its
ends. Now it is to be rewarded by a
grateful public and the editors of The
Star with competition from hordes of
poorly trained girls called practical
nurses" who are said to be needed in
this emergency"
Fears Threat of "Cheap Labor"
AS mentioned, this flight into medioc-
rity is easy to fathom. Hospitals are
having to pay unskilled labor, maids
and orderlies high wages or they quit
and go to work in restaurants, on road
gangs and any places needing Drawn.
disqualification insurance firms. striv-
ing to make their policies attractive
through low premiums, allow INSULT
cient funds for the hospitals to provide
the care expected Charity cases and
reduced fees to the INDECENT further
harass budgets. The hospitals are hard
pressed and the economy needed to make
ends meet comes from the nurses low
rate of pay.
Then, to top it off, it is considered by
IF
Star, Commissioner Mason, and I trust
no one else, that the answer is the sup
plying of droves of cheap labor in the
guise OF the innocent student practical
nurses. They will be paid so they will
enroll, they will be dressed in the cos
tunes of bona fide nurses SO that they
will endure the experience, and they will
be graduated after learning what the
maids and orderlies already know In
the meantime they will supply hired
hands for the hospitals at a negligible
cost compared with the modest outlay
necessary for raising nurses salaries.
After graduation they will be neither
flesh, fowl nor good red herring, in that
they will not be allowed (and Heaven
help US il it turns out otherWise!) to
handle medicines, give hypodermic and
intravenous indications, nor assist at
operations.
The worst result of this policy, how
ever, is the encouragement engendered
in girls who would otherwise be candi-
dates for regular nursing school, To go
through three years of rugged schooling,
oftensafte two or more years of college
preparation, and find on graduation that
you are doing work of much greater
responsibility, yet your pay is dollar or
two more day than that of the practi-
cal nurse one year out of high school,
would certainly deter the majority of
girls anxious to make something of
themselves in life.
Three Groups Seen to Blame.
Nursing is an honored profession in
the United States where standards of
training have been raised gradually in
succeeding decades to the point where
one can truthfully say ours are as a
whole, the finest nurses in the world.
The stiff entrance requirements, the
tuition fees and hard work cause only
those with high determination and in
centive to take up the work. Unfortu-
nately, these characteristics have been
the undoing Of the profession. Terrible
injustices have been overlooked repeated
ly until now the wind reapeth whirl-
wind and even the doughtiest has given
thought to finding more appreciative and
satisfying fields of endeavor. The blame
must fall on the nurses for being too
steadfast and too unorganiized for effec-
tive action: on the medical profession
for not assisting its auxiliary profession
to fight for its rights; on the public
for being so niggardly and selfish, re-
spending only to threats of work stop
page before taking cognizance of the
troubles of the noblest professions of
women, nursing and teaching. The So
luton is not the one proposed by the
American College of Surgeons, but the
reverse. An adequate remuneration for
services, better working conditions and
the restoration of morale which will
accompany these changes, will draw
nurses back to duty from the fields to
which they have fled, from their home
making Tin this "emergency''), and into
nursing schools for thorough training.
A SURGEON.
Marriafe and Reli6ion