Lastly. With regard to rules to be followed in giving assistance of
whatever kind.
[Sidenote: Need of Advice with a view above all to Security.]
It seems to me most important that we should obtain the opinions both
of hospital authorities and of a few able men of business, before
laying down rules. The whole matter is so essentially mixed up with the
tangible point of securing that the savings of these poor women should
avail them in their age, that it is urgent to have sound practical
advice as to letting nothing else imperil this. Security seems the
cardinal point of the whole, and that is a question for men of business
to answer.
[Sidenote: Suggestions in detail.]
The following suggestions toward obtaining it are offered.
1. Security of invested savings to be the first and main thing to be
secured. Every other object should be subordinate to this.
2. If we decide upon aiding their savings, let the security of this aid
be the main point. Invest all donations, annual or not; unless, should
any hospitals contribute annually, it might be fairly considered that
those contributions should be annually used.
3. The aim should be to enable all hospital nurses, of good character,
to provide annuities for themselves, whether with or without
assistance. I think assistance will be necessary.
4. Also to enable private and monthly nurses, and midwives, to do the
same, but without requiring the certificate of character, which, not to
be a mockery, ought to be an effectual one; and these persons are not
under a fixed superior.
5. The pensions should, if it be possible, range from £13 or £15 a-year
to £50 a-year: say £13, £20, £30, £40, £50.
6. Each hospital nurse to produce, before being allowed to join the
Fund, a certificate from her matron of chastity, general good conduct,
and a statement as to her being unmarried, married, or a widow, also
of her having served in one hospital not less than a year. Also
her marriage certificate, if a wife, and, if a widow, that and the
certificate of her husband’s death. In the event of her marriage or
re-marriage afterwards, the marriage-certificate to be produced, and
her altered name and the fact of her marriage duly recorded in the
Fund-book. (All this is important: aliases and fictitious marriages are
sadly common, in this class).
7. If possible the certificate to be produced once a-year, and, on
its failure, the contributor to cease to have a title to assistance.
_Assistance_ in the form of an addition to the annuity may be made
_contingent_; the annuity which the premiums provide must be absolute:
most of the vices tend to shorten life, that is, to diminish the number
of annual payments, so that the fund would not be likely to incur
losses through them.
8. Private and monthly nurses, and midwives, to produce, before being
allowed to join the Fund, a certificate from the Clergyman of the
parish, stating his belief that the subscriber is a respectable woman,
unmarried, married, or a widow; and in the latter cases, marriage and
death certificates. On any after-marriage or re-marriage, certificate
to be produced and altered name registered, on pain of expulsion from
the Fund. I should not attempt an annual certificate for this migratory
and “independent” class.
9. Each nurse, before being allowed to join the Fund, to undergo
whatever examination is undergone by women before they are allowed
to effect Life Insurances, as to her being, at the date of joining,
a healthy woman. (Physicians ought to advise here as to inserting
provisions technical enough to be effective).
10. Payments to be made weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually, as
shall be advised. Amounts to run from 6_d._ or 1_s._ a week upwards.
For the plan to work, it ought to allow small payments on an ascending
scale.
Many will only be able to make very small payments.
Few will be able to make other than small payments.
11. Payments made by a subscriber dying before attaining pension to be
devisable by will, and in case of intestacy, divided among next of kin.