A Charter for Nurses
The Government will probably never intrOduce any proposals that command a wider measure of support than those contained in its White Paper, issued last week, on the nursing profession. Everyone is agreed that there is no justification for the form of personal and professional slavery which nursing has hitherto involved ; it says much for the generous instincts of young women that so many of them have been willing to endure the low rates of pay and the petty tyrannies of the profession in order to practise their vocation of nursing the sick. The country, however, can no longer afford to depend on self-sacrifice alone. Today at least 30,000 more nurses and midwives are required, and there are another 12,000 vacancies for domestic work in hospitals. In order to attract new recruits, the Government proposes to introduce new wage scales, which will give nurses of various grades between £4o-k6o a year more than at present, and to establish a new code of living and working conditions which will ensure adequate holidays and days off, reasonable work- ing hours, and proper facilities for rest and recreation. In addition; it aims at abolishing those ridiculous and irrational restrictions on personal liberty which have been so humiliating and irksome. It is to be hoped that these inducements will be strong enough to attract the recruitsthat are so urgently needed. Perhaps the only comment the proposals need is that it is lamentable no Government introduced them earlier.
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