asked the Minister for Health whether in view of the fact that many young Irish girls are at present going abroad to be trained as nurses because of the high premiums charged by many Irish hospitals to trainee nurses he will take steps to encourage these hospitals to end the practice of charging such premiums.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Hospital Premiums for Trainee Nurses.
4.
The hospitals to which the question relates are voluntary or proprietary hospitals, and the fixing of fees chargeable to girls entering their nursing schools is entirely a matter for the individual hospital authorities. While I would deprecate any conditions likely to discourage girls from entering training schools in Irish hospitals, I have no evidence that the hospitals in which entrance fees are charged are experiencing difficulty in recruiting their full complements of students.
In order to improve the conditions of new entrants to the profession, I recently intimated to the authorities of voluntary and proprietary hospitals to which grants to cover revenue deficits are paid from the Hospitals' Trust Fund that, should they decide to adopt new scales of pay for student nurses, the additional expenditure involved would rank towards the calculation of deficits for the purpose of grants. The new scales of pay indicated to the hospitals represent very considerable increases over the rates hitherto in operation, and their adoption will, it is estimated, increase the demands on the Hospitals' Trust Fund by £250,000 annually.
The Deputy is, no doubt, aware that nurses who enter training schools in hospitals conducted by health authorities are not liable for entrance fees, and have for a considerable time received salaries which compare very favourably with those paid in other hospitals.