A NEGLECTED PHILANTHROPY
NURSES' MEMORIAL FUND (excerpt)
In moving the adoption of the annual report and balance-sheet at the sixth annual meeting of the Now Zealand Nurses' Memorial Fund, held in the Town Hall yesterday afternoon, the President (Dr H. Lindo Ferguson) said it was again necessary to draw attention to the fact that they were not being supported by the public in the way of annual subscriptions as they had a right to expect. From time to time they saw in the papers letters, generally from anonymous writers, who pointed out that there ought to be a superannuation scheme for nurses, that nurses were very badly treated, and that their services to the public were not recognised. He was afraid that the people who wrote those letters were of the type who when they saw a waggon stuck called on Hercules rather than put their shoulder to the wheel. Their list of subscribers numbered forty. Nine of these were nurses and four medical men, so that the public as a whole was not making any effort, beyond writing anonymous letters to the papers to recognise their indebtednes to the profession. He wished some of these writers would acknowledge their obligations by sending their contributions, no matter how small, to help the nurses who were in difficulties. Since the fund had been in operation they had been able to assist altogether forty nurses. Twenty-one of them received temporary help in the way of credit, and they knew that in tho large majority of cases the assistance given was of considerable importance to them, and probably tided them over till they were able to resume their work. Of the nineteen annuitants four had died. Three had recovered and resumed their work, and twelve still remained on the roll of their dependents. In this connection he might say that only the other day they lost one of their annuitants, Nurse Veitch. Nurse Veitch was for something like twenty years in the service of the Dunedin Hospital Board. During a considerable portion of that time she acted as sub-matron. She wore herself out in the service of the board, and had it not been for this fund she would have been practically destitute. He quite recognised that there ought to be a retiring fund for nurses, a superannuation scheme on a large scale; but we had not got it. The only thing that nurses had to help them in that way was this little fund which they had started here as a memorial to nurses who died in the war. He did not know whether the appeal going in this way to the public would have any more effect than previous appeals, but he sincerely trusted that it would lead some of those who saw it to put their hands in their pockets and help. -Evening Star, 17/7/1923.
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