Queen’s Hospital employs regularly sixteen nurses at $50 a month and living expenses, and a head nurse at $75 a month and living expenses. This means an expense of $875 a month. A hospital of this size located in a community of the type of Honolulu should be able at an expense of $250 a month and living expenses for a superintendent of nurses and an assistant, to train a class of fifteen girls at no cost to the community other than their living expenses and about $150 a month of an allowance for their uniforms, books, etc.
Native girls who have taken hospital training on the mainland are not only giving the best of satisfaction but are earning salaries far higher than it would be possible for them to secure in any other way.
The corps of district nurses, who receive salaries of $90 a month and have continuous work, is constantly receiving additions, and the demand for this class of help in various institutions is constantly increasing.
As at present organized the three separate hospitals, Queen’s, the Children’s and the Maternity Home represent an outlay for plant and running expenses which might easily be materially lessened. A consolidation of the Maternity Home and the Children’s Hospital would not only be an economy, but would give both institutions an opportunity to give thorough training to a corps of children’s nurses, as well as to give maternity and children’s diseases practice to nurses taking training at Queen’s Hospital. Such a course is customary in other cities.
If the consolidation could be effected and a resident physician placed in charge, it would not only place both institutions on a higher basis, but would leave the supervising nurse free to train the proposed nursing classes. This would mean to subscribers to both institutions an opportunity for truly efficient giving—which in turn means the consideration of community needs first, last and always; and making a dollar perform 100 per cent of its work.
Only recently while visiting a family in Camp 2, a young baby fell from the second story porch and struck its head in falling. Owing to the necessity for immediate medical attendance it was impossible to take it to the Children’s Hospital, and the child had to be rushed down to Queen’s Hospital.
I know of nothing that is better worth doing in the community than making these changes in the hospital regime, and instituting a course of training for nurses. If the matter were given newspaper publicity young women of the city would undoubtedly furnish good material for the classes.
STENOGRAPHERS.
A circular letter sent to eighty-eight representative employers of stenographers in Honolulu, supplemented by further personal inquiry, indicates that there are about 100 women stenographers employed in the city at present, at salaries from the $40 or $60 a month usually paid to beginners, up to $100 and $150 paid those having experience from a year to eight, ten and twelve years. Over 50 per cent of the salaries range between $100 and $135 a month, and the average for all is $90 a month. As compared with mainland salaries this average is unusually high, but on the other hand the average of ability is higher and reports indicate that the stenographers in Honolulu have a generally higher level of school training than is reached in communities where numerous commercial schools, accepting pupils of any grade of intelligence who can be persuaded to take their course, have flooded the market with a supply of incompetents willing to work for any wage.
There are only three complaints of incapability, two of them being on account of lack of English, and one for lack of concentration. The others reported not capable or expert have not yet had a year’s experience, and could not reasonably be expected to have reached their full efficiency.