The Girl on the Job – "Nursing"

1921

The Girl on the Job

How to Succeed — How to Get Ahead — How to Make Good
By Jessie Roberts

NEED FOR NURSES

There are not enough trained nurses to meet the demand. On the other hand nurses are saying that they cannot make both ends meet unless their pay is increased. Many women who might take up the work are deterred because of this fact.

To meet this, the alumni societies of the training schools are combining with a view to settle on a proper advance. The new rate of pay would be $6 a day for 12-hour periods, and $50 a week for contagious cases.

Nurses are going to be asked for by communities to do public work. District visiting and prenatal care at the expense of the community, where circumstances demand, will be put into the hands of trained nurses. It will be worth doing, and sure to appeal to certain types of women who like nursing, but who do not care for private or hospital work.

A girl who wants to study for this profession should select her hospital with care. She will have to expect to do hard and disagreeable work. But in a number of institutions the eight hour schedule is being adhered to, more salary is being paid, and other matters that have given rise to discontent are being improved.

A trained nurse is one of the most important members of the community. There is now a great need for more of her. Most hospitals accept only college-bred women, and no women without the equivalent of a high school training will be accepted. If you who read this feel a call for nursing, get the address of a good hospital, write to the matron of nurses there, and follow her directions. You cannot enter upon a finer walk of life.

—Mountain Democrat, Placerville, California, October 29, 1921, page 6.