How Chennai gives a damn about its nurses

Chennai: A handful of hospitals and skilled doctors have long since transformed Chennai into a healthcare money-spinner, bringing in hundreds of patients from the rest of India and different parts of the world every day. They do smart surgeries, deploy cutting-edge machines and achieve things that till some time ago only hospitals in Singapore or Bangkok had been able to do. But when it comes to nursing care, which is as important as the skills of the doctors or the sophistication of flashy equipment, they are exploitative and stingy. Brutally stingy. How would one otherwise explain their dismissive stand against hundreds of trained nurses who earn less than an auto driver or super market salesperson? That too in a state ruled by a Chief Minister who is known for her affirmative stands on the rights of women? [caption id=“attachment_234336” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The nurses have been on strike for five days seeking higher wages. Firstpost”]  [/caption] About 2,000 nurses, a majority of whom are women, are on strike at three big private hospitals in the city for the fifth day today seeking decent basic pay and better working conditions; but the hospitals are resorting to strong-arm tactics. Reportedly, one of the hospitals sent their men to the nurses’ hostel and asked to them to sign blank papers, besides taking photos on cellphones. According to the striking nurses, the same hospital also called up their homes and warned that they would be dismissed. Another hospital disconnected power and water to the nurses hostel. One of the hospitals has issued termination notices to the striking nurses, kept the hospital out-of-bounds for them so that they don’t sit on strike on the premises and sprayed water around the hostel to keep the ground wet and slushy so that they stayed indoors. The same hospital, also part of a country-wide super-deluxe chain, flew in nurses from other centres to kill the strike. All this show of muscle on young girls who otherwise don’t have a life outside the taxing hospital wards! Threats of dismissal, disconnecting power and water connections, threats of eviction from six-girls-in-a-room hostel dorms and violation of labour norms are familiar themes in the nurses’ strike story that has spread across the country a few months ago, starting with Mumbai and Delhi to Kerala and now, to Chennai. Let’s see if the nurses are justified in their demands. According to a statement by the Apollo Welfare Association for Registered Nurses, their main demand is a raise of their basic pay from Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 10,000. Striking nurses from a corporate hospital in Adyar told Firstpost that a fresher gets a basic pay of Rs. 2,500 and gross of just Rs. 5,200. “In this city we need at least Rs. 10,000 to survive,” one of them said. Is it an unfair demand? It is shameful that the country still has such ridiculously low salaries for skilled professionals, that too in a metro. The maximum that a junior nurse gets as gross monthly is less than that of a head-load worker in the city’s wholesale vegetable market or a casual driver. Is it a standard that all hospitals maintain in the city? No, only the profiteering corporate and private hospitals who spend millions on advertisements, image-makeovers and brand-building. The government hospitals treat them better. Nurses with the same experience and qualifications get Rs. 15,000 and other perks. The difference in salaries progressively increases with their years of experience. As seen in other parts of the country, the doctors who benefitted the most from the private and corporate healthcare boom, choose to be either silent or side with the management. Thanks to the free-for-all market some of them earn a few lakh a month, but when it comes to nursing care which is extremely critical in patient management, they look the other way. Not a single organisation of doctors, except a small outfit, has come out in support of the nurses. According to the striking nurses, most of whom come from poor families in Kerala, the salaries do not suffice to even pay back their loans. Most of them have taken education loans of at least Rs 3 lakh and are now falling into mounting debt traps. They say it is a do-or-die battle for them since they just cannot survive in such exploitative conditions. Besides laughable salaries, the nurses also have to endure killing working conditions. Although they are meant to work [caption id=“attachment_234343” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Nurses say the salaries being paid by the hospitals isn’t enough for them to repay their education loans. Firstpost”]  [/caption] on eight-hour shifts, a nurse cannot leave duty without handing over duties to the next person on shift. Often, hospitals will not have enough nurses to run such shifts and they try to extract an extra couple of hours from each. In most cases, they end up working 10-12 hours, and some times, even double shifts. Given the helpless conditions of the nurses, the hospitals are unlikely to yield easily unless the government cracks the whip. If they had any inclination to be courteous to the women who help them build their business, they would have done it voluntarily. Whether the hospital managements relax their stand or not, it is time that the government has revised the pay scale and brought in systems to monitor the working conditions of nurses in the private sector. Business edifices, that too in the healthcare sector where compassion and care are as important as the medicines or machines, should not be allowed to rise by exploiting hapless people, that too young girls. If such exploitation continues, it is likely to worsen the severe shortage of nursing professionals in the country. At the moment, three-fourths of the country’s demand is met by women and of late, men from Kerala, which has a decades-long history in nursing care. It is in the interest of the entire healthcare sector and country that nurses get a better deal. Needless to say that it is also an issue of human rights, ethics, and exploitation of women.