Chennai: Nurses protest, want to be made permanent staff

Chennai: More than 200 contract government nurses struck work and assembled outside the government multi-speciality hospital in Omandurar estate, demanding employment as permanent staff. They were detained by the police before they met health minister Ma Subramanian.

“We understand their concerns, but we will not be able to give a one-line solution for this,” said Subramanian. “Nurses who have cleared the medical recruitment board tests will be appointed as permanent nurses as soon as a vacancy arises. This will take time as the sanctioned posts for nurses is not high. We will work with the finance department to see if we can increase the number of sanctioned posts,” he said.

Police apprehended about 150 protesters and detained them at the marriage halls in Triplicane. They were booked under various Sections of IPC including unlawful assembly and released, after taking their addresses and identity proofs.

Some nurses, who struck work today were appointed in 2015, while some others were appointed in 2020 during the pandemic. “At least 10,000 nurses are still in contract with the state government. We receive a fixed pay of Rs18,000, compared to regular nurses who start with pay of Rs32,000,” said a nurse from Cuddalore. “The state has less than 30,000 sanctioned positions for nurses. These nurses are posted to care for patients in more than 69,810 beds across government hospitals, besides health centres and work at vaccination centres.

The government nurses’ association has asked to double the sanctioned strength to fulfil the requirements prescribed by the Indian Nursing Council.

The council has prescribed one nurse for every patient in ICUs, one for every four patients in recovery rooms and post-surgery units and one for every eight in other wards. In many government hospitals, nurses attend up to 25 patients in a ward.