CHENNAI: Chennai city police on Tuesday detained around 700 nurses, who staged a protest outside the Directorate of Medical Services (DMS) Campus, demanding regularisation of jobs. The protesting nurses alleged that a few of them were forcibly evicted by male police personnel and a few others fainted. The nurses said they would continue the hunger protest till their demands were met.
The protestors said around 7,000 nurses were recruited through the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB) in 2015, of which only around 3,000 were regularised and the remaining are working on consolidated pay.
Representatives of the nurses association were later called for talks with Health Secretary Gagandeep Singh Bedi. Speaking to TNIE, D Ashwini, state vice president, Tamil Nadu Nurses’ Empowerment Association said, that in 2014 around 40,000 wrote the MRB exam, out of which 7,243 nurses were selected for employment.
One of the protestors said, "We are employed to serve the patients, but the health department is making us do a lot of data entry work. This is against the nature of our work." The nurses who have been working in various government hospitals also demanded that the government provide them with paid maternity leave and fill vacant posts, among other things. The protest was later withdrawn following assurances from the health secretary.