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intendent nurse; one assistant superintendent nurse; 15 ward
sisters; one head female attendant; one female charge attendant;
23 female attendants; 167 assistant nurses (female); one head male
nurse; 2 male charge nurses; 54 male nurses; one head male
attendant; 14 male attendants.
Forest House. One matron; one female attendant; one
head male attendant; one charge sick attendant (male); 12 male
attendants.
Harold Wood Hospital. One matron; 6 ward sisters; two
female staff nurses; 37 assistant nurses; 5 male nurses.
Shortage of nurses. The national problem of the shortage
of nurses is very acute in West Ham owing" to the large number of
beds available for sick cases, viz:—5.9 per 1,000 of the population.
Various reasons have been given for this shortage, but the
main reasons may be briefly grouped under four headings: —
(a) Pre-hospital training. The gap between the age of leaving
school and entering hospital for training is probably the cause
of many suitable candidates not taking up nursing as a career.
This is especially true of the girl who leaves school at 14 years of
age and is compelled to earn her living immediately. While
engaged on other work she is probably earning a fair wage, usually
more than she would obtain as a probationer nurse, and the desire
to take up nursing as a profession is soon lost in many instances.
(b) Scale of salaries. The salary paid to nurses is not
attractive in comparison with that which may be obtained in other
tvpes of employment, even in factories.
(c) Hours of work. Long working hours are the cause of
much dissatisfaction amongst nurses.
(d) Conditions of service. In many hospitals nurses are
unduly burdened with the performance of unskilled domestic work,
and in the nurses' home her personal affairs are often subjected to
a degree of interference which would not be tolerated elsewhere.
The Council are, however, endeavouring to overcome this
very difficult problem in hospitals and institutions under their
control. The above difficulties are being dealt with as follows.
(a) The Education Committee are formulating a scheme in
which selected girls who are desirous of entering the nursing profession
may continue their education and take various subjects to
cover the syllabus of the Preliminary State Examination for
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