Mr Wallace.
53723/47-48 Pt. II
251A
155
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Salary of Principal Matron, Hong Kong.
[we agreed that I should send you a note concerning
the above.)
like
While it is true that this salary should all salaries of members of the Colonial Nursing Service. bear some relation to that of comparable nursing positions in this country, there are no posts here which compare exactly with that of a Principal Matron in a Colony such as Hong Kong.
There are two points which must be given special consideration and which justify a higher salary than that of a Nursing Officer of a Regional Hospital Board under the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
1. A Principal Matron in a Colony has the complete
responsibility, under the D.M.S., for arranging adequats nursing for the sick in all hospitals, and for the building up of a public health nursing programme. She has, therefore, to post to the most appropriate positions all nursing staff, both expatriate and local, and to co-ordinate their work within the service.
2.
The Nursing Officer for a Hospital Region here will not be so closely concerned with arrangements within any one hospital or group of hospitals; in addition, the Hospital Board to which she is responsible includes nursing representatives who will be available to advise her, and there are also the Chief Nursing Officer and her deputies at the Ministry of Health who bear the over-all responsibility. In the U.K., public health nursing is organised separately and is not the responsibility of the Hospital Board nor, I assume, of its Nursing Officer in the same way as in a Colony.
Hong Kong has reciprocal State Registration for Nurses with England & Wales, and though a Nursing Board there fulfils most of the functions of the General Nursing Council here, the Principal Matron not only carries the over-all responsibility of maintaining the standard of nurses' training in the Colony, but also serves as a member of the Board and, as the chief nursing officer of the Government, would bear the additional duty of giving professional advice on those matters under the Ordinance for which the Governor is responsible.
Nursing Officers of Regional Hospital Boards will not, by virtue of their office, perform any of these duties.
It has been agreed that the Matrons in Hong Kong shall receive the salary recommended by the Salaries Commission which is approximately the same as that mentioned for Nursing Officers in the U.K.. The Principal Matron must obviously be given a higher salary than that of the Matrons under her, and I suggest that the two points set out above show that her position carries greater responsibilities than has been realised by the Treasury.
Florence. to. Udell. 3/5/45.
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