FROM THE ARCHIVES:A commission into technical education in the late 1920s heard complaints about the low levels of literacy among those leaving school at the official age of 14 and calls for "continuation courses" to cater for 14 to 16 year olds. It also examined areas of employment, including this account from the Irish Nurses' Union of the situation in the profession at the time – JOE JOYCE
MISS K Price, secretary (with Miss Holohan), representing the Irish Nurses’ Union, said that where candidates had only national school education, the gap from the leaving age of 14 to the entry age of 18, 19, 20 or 21, as required by the hospitals, was very injurious.
They suggested that the gap be filled by a preliminary course of domestic science, hygiene and physiology.
There was no control of entry into the profession, which, in Ireland, was very much overstocked. The hospitals took as many probationers as they had room for, without any relation to the work awaiting them. Consequently, every year about 150 nurses were set loose upon an already over-stocked market.
It was a profession which women did not leave until 50 or 60 years of age, as remuneration generally was not sufficient to enable them to save, so that a nurse without relatives or private means had literally to continue to work until she dropped. In this country there was no general pension scheme for nurses, though pensions were given in Local Government service at 65 years of age.
Having referred to the conditions of training, Miss Price went on to say that few girls of good education to-day would enter a profession which in this country (except for the best class of private nursing) meant a life of drudgery and isolation from society, and frequently permanent ill-health in old age, caused by long hours of work under intolerable conditions.
As regarded salaries in England in public service hospitals, full board, apartments, fuel, light and attendance, with laundry and uniform allowance, and salaries of £60, £80 and £100 per year were almost universal, day duty averaging 44 to 60 hours per week and night duty 48 to 84 hours.
In Ireland the salaries were £35, £40, £50 (average), and sometimes £60, the highest being £75 (except to matrons), with apartments, fuel, light, attendance of a sort; but no laundry or uniform allowance.
They considered that a technical training school, both preliminary and post-graduate, for those contemplating the nursing profession, and for nurses already trained, would be very useful.
They also urged that classes in elementary hygiene and physiology, first-aid, mothercraft and care of infants, and domestic economy be provided for the general community, as nurses’ work would be rendered more useful if the poor people whom they visited had even an elementary knowledge of personal and domestic hygiene.
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