Nurses who are members of the Tamil Nadu MRB Nurses Empowerment Association on Tuesday staged a protest at the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services to put forward their 11 point charter of demands, including the long-pending demand for regularisation of services. With the nurses trying to lay siege to the premises in the morning, the police arrested them and shifted them to various marriage and community halls in the city. The nurses alleged that they were forcibly removed from premises by the police.
N. Subin, general secretary of the association, announced that they were withdrawing the protest after holding talks with the Health Secretary. “Our demands have been accepted. They have assured of immediate measures to grant maternity leave, while a decision on regularisation of our services will be taken after discussion with the Health Minister,” he said.
The nurses, who were recruited through the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB), have been demanding regularisation of services. They wanted the State government to create permanent posts based on patient load as per National Medical Commission and Indian Public Health Standard recommendations. The association demanded filling the posts of nurses in the 11 new government medical college hospitals.
It demanded the government to drop the move to surrender the posts of mentor staff nurses in the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine to create new posts in Kalaignar Centenary Super Speciality Hospital. They demanded reinstating the nurses who worked during COVID-19 and were later terminated from service. The nurses demanded grant of paid maternity leave and to stop imposing online report work on them.
Representatives of the association held talks with Health department officials in the evening.
Published - October 10, 2023 09:43 pm IST
