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THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 25, 1988

The Worst Job In The World!

ASKED a mother what she in- all spent in dangerous proximity to tended doing with her daughter deadly disease, for, unlike the doc- when the girl left school.

She replied, in accents of pride: "I shall make her a nurse. And she looked at me with shock- ed incredulity when I declared: "That's the worst job in the world!"*

Mark you, it ought not to be, but it is. And I propose, here and now, to tell you why.

you that many girls are returned to their homes, broken down, labell- tor, the nurse is always in the ward. ed. "unfit for the profession"-at She has lectures to attend, dozens; the end of that period, if she passes of odd jobs to carry out efficiently, her examination, she becomes and she is even asked to undertake State registered nurse, menial tasks normally entrusted to the ward maids.

*

In the older hospitals, for instan- ce, probationers are usually set to "scour the brasses," and I have even known them ordered to polish

the floors.

As to the diet on which this is

Now, surely, we might expect her salary to expand to generous figure.

of Florence

"The myth Nightingale is dead.

“To invoke it now in the “- cause of Sweated Labour is sheer hypocrisy

is often a motor-cycle in Scotland to help.. her make her visits. And, indeed, there are other

But, alas! it is not so. A wretched increase to something like £70 a year will be her reward if she continues in institutional chances. work. Perhaps, with good for- Consider for a start the young probationer. Her entrance to the accomplished, I know hospital food tune, in a few years she is appoint

and cooking, and I fully agree with ed sister, with an extra £30 per docfor. She

the remarks made by Lord Horder annum. the other day.

hospital is no easy matter, must fill in a long and often em- barrassing application form, pro- vide birth certificate, references, and a letter attesting her blameless integrity.

it

She must pass the medical ex- amination, satisfy the authorities as to her intelligence and-in many instances--her social standing. And must finally survive the critial eye of the matron in a personal in- terview.

A formidable standard for any girl to obtain. And one which ought to offer to the successful candidate not only a reasonable immediate re- compense-but a fair opportunity in the future.

Well, what is the recompense? On the average it works out at of the pitiful, the beggarly sum £25 a year.

Think of it, those of you who spend more on your cigar- ettes!

For this pittance the young nurse must work desperately hard. Her. spell of duty often runs to eleven. hours a day.

In the week she may reach the total of no fewer than sixty hours

To be quite frivolous, I suggest

that a pretty nurse may marry a

And a skilful one may re- ceive a nice fat legacy... from a grateful patient.

Another step forward in this slow, heartbreaking progress.

The aim and ambition of every chances sister is to become a matron. the posts available are tionately few

But these, naturally, are the odd in a hard and grinding But life, the exceptions which serve propor- only to prove the rule.

No! The nurse's diet. is not

And beyond all this— epicurean. as though the hazard and hardship of this occupation were not enough the young nurse must submit to a system of disciplinary training And so it happens more often which is as rigorous as it is ob- than not that, after a lifetime of solete.

work and sacrifice, the unhappy woman is thrown literally on the scrap heap with no pension nothing: saved,

She is bound by a code of rules and regulation which might well serve the barracks square. ·

Far be it from me to suggest that all matrons are tryants. Yet most of them in my experience, drilled as they are in a hard school, make admirable sergeant-majors.

Nurse must not do this and she must not do that. Let her venture to appear in silk stockings and she is sternly reprimanded.

She dare not exceed her "pass- out" by a single minute earns a severe rebuke. To in her room is a deadly sin.

And so the taboo goes on.

*

*

*

Parhaps you think this an aggeration.

It is not as though the galling and injustice of the nurse's life went

unrecognised.

the For years pundits of the medical profession have shaken their heads and

mournfully bewailed the nurse's

lot.

י,

Such nobility, they cry, such ex- heroism and self-sacrifice it de. serves a better reward. We must do something about it!

But what has been done? Virtually nothing.

and

recreation

Then let me tell you that the other day I received an appeal to contribute to an aged and disabled or she nurses' charity.

A few hospitals have been sham- smokeMany of our old nurses," the ed into providing better sleeping

letter ran, "are, through no fault accommodation of their own, destitute and friend-rooms for their staff. But in the less they are quite worn out.” main the same wretched conditions ⠀⠀ Gould there be a more painful, a persist, the same long hours, the more authentic indictment of the same miserable pay. system than that?

The days are gone when we can a few plums may be reconcile our consciences by as- picked in the profession. With luck serting that the life of the nurse a good nurse may secure an “out- is one of deliberate immolation. side" post with 2 progressive local The myth of Florence Night- authority or County Council where ingale is dead. It has haunted the she will receive a comfortable nursing profession too long. .-- And. Hiving wage, adequate holidays to invoke it now in the cause of with pay, and even a tiny car it sweated labour is sheer hypocrisy.

And what of the nurse's future? If our junior survives her four years' training-and I can assure

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Of course,

Tommy Who Wanted To Join Japanese

Army In Shanghai!

"I want to join the Japanese of the headquarters of the Japanese Army!'

expeditionary force.

N

“Unable to comply with his re- This singular, request, the Shang-

quest for enlistment in the Japan- hai Mainich reported in a featured story, was received by Japanese him over to the Japanese Consulate- ese Army, the gendarmes handed" gendarmes from a British soldier, General, which, in turn, surrender- found by a patrol of bluejackets on Yangtszepoo Road.

Deeming the man's actions aus- picious, the patrol took him into custody and later surrendered "him"

ed him to the British military-au- thorities at 11 o'clock Saturday night," the Mainichi alleged.

-The man's name, as given in the

transcription into English.

to the headquarters of the Japanese Japanese daily, resisted effortsat

gendarmerie.

Questioned by the military police, the man was said by the Mainichi to have replied that he belonged to the Waterworks detachment of the Second Battalion of the Loyal (North Lancashire) Regiment.

Where Fat Man Fail.

The trouble with many a fat man is his daily doesn't”, says acomic paper. Undoubtedly the daily dozen help to keep down fat, but it bothers The man, who wore a private's many people to do them. To all such, uniform, said he arrived in Shang Pinkettes are a blessing......... As gently as hai in November and, being dis-nature they establish regularity of the satisfied with service in the British feel fit, fresh and cheery to meet the daily habit so essential; If you are to

Army, had long ago.decided today. change his allegiance and serve un- Are you liverish or bilious, are you der Japanese colours.

headachy, deflatulent, constipated, 'glum' ? _.- Pinkettes are the friend you At the first opportune moment, peed They purity bad breath, clear the man was reported to have said, pimply skin, relieve piles, restore to he slipped out of the Waterworks

the Jaundiced eye the clear brightness of health. Pinkettes is the [compound and went out in search From chemists everywhere.

pame.