[Sidenote: The two Classes of Hospital Nurses.]
1. The nurses of the great London hospitals are divided into two
classes: head-nurses or sisters, and nurses or assistant-nurses. These
latter are, generally, subdivided into day and night-nurses.
[Sidenote: Head-Nurses or Sisters.]
2. The head-nurses, on an average, receive about £50 a-year and no
board, or lower wages and partial board; the use of one or two rooms,
generally unfurnished, and an allowance of fuel and light. Sometimes
uniform outer-clothing is included. Sometimes two pints of beer daily
are added to the above.
[Sidenote: Nurses or Assistant-Nurses.
Day Nurses.]
3. The day-nurses, on an average, receive about 12_s._ a-week and no
board, or lower wages and partial board; lodging, with the use of some
furniture; sometimes an allowance of fuel and light apart from the use
of both in the wards. Sometimes uniform outer-clothing is added to the
above; sometimes they have also an allowance of one pint of beer daily.
[Sidenote: Night Nurses.]
4. The night-nurses, on an average, receive about 10_s._ a-week and no
board; lodging, with the use of some furniture; sometimes an allowance
of fuel and light apart from the use of both in the wards. Sometimes
they live in their own lodgings, near the hospital, receiving the same
wages.
[Sidenote: Retiring Pensions and Payments at St. Bartholomew’s.]
5. I am informed that St. Bartholomew’s Hospital has no fixed scale of
pensions, nor is the term of service defined. But pensions have been
granted to worn-out sisters of from £15 to £25; as also pensions of
smaller amount to some worn-out nurses.
[Sidenote: At St. Thomas’s.]
6. St. Thomas’s Hospital, in like manner, has given, without any fixed
rule, pensions to worn-out sisters, of from £30 to £50. A gift in
money has been granted on the retirement of a sister; and the same has
been done in the case of nurses who may have received injuries in the
discharge of their duties; and in a very few instances of long and
faithful service they have been pensioned.
[Sidenote: At Guy’s Hospital.]
7. Guy’s Hospital for a long time generously provided for its
superannuated sisters, but the plan in practice being found very
objectionable, was a few years since given up, and the authorities
established a Superannuation Fund for the Servants of the Hospital.
It is compulsory on sisters, optional to nurses, to belong to it.
Each subscriber receives a book containing printed rules, with tables
of rates of ages, payments, and pensions, and also blank leaves.
The subscriber selects the amount of pension for which she wishes
to subscribe. At each quarterly payment of wages, a proportion is
paid into the fund; entered in the subscriber’s book, and properly
attested; the hospital makes a payment of equal amount into the fund
on the subscriber’s account. If the subscriber die before attaining
the age when the pension begins, the amount paid by the subscriber
is disposable by will, and in case of intestacy reverts to the next
of kin. The pensions, one-half of which are thus purchased by the
subscriber, and one-half presented by the hospital, vary, if I remember
rightly, from £15 to £50. In February 1857, no nurse subscribed; to
which three remarks apply:--first, that every good work takes time to
grow; secondly, that not a few of the sisters, having looked forward to
benefiting by the old system of superannuation, rather grudged their
own payments than sought to induce their nurses to subscribe; thirdly,
that many of the nurses were really unable to make the payment.
[Sidenote: At the Non-Endowed Hospitals.]
8. The non-endowed hospitals, I believe, but write from very imperfect
information, grant few pensions. Sometimes they grant a gift of £25
or less to a retiring head-nurse. Sometimes they employ a head-nurse,
become too old for her work, as an extra and inferior nurse. Sometimes
they grant a worn-out head-nurse an asylum in the incurable ward of the
hospital. I believe the pensions to old nurses are still fewer than
the few to head-nurses. Definite information could easily be procured.
Their funds do not permit such a diversion from their main and primary
object, for which they are often, as it is, inadequate.
[Sidenote: At County Hospitals.]
9. Of the wages and prospects of eventual provision of the nurses of
the county hospitals I know nothing; but understand that the former are
lower than, and the latter as entirely blank as those of the nurses of
the non-endowed London hospitals.