Nurses protest before DMS seeking permanent jobs  

CHENNAI : Around 4,500 nurses from across the State staged a day-long sit-in at the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMRHS) demanding permanent/government jobs on Monday. 
These nurses recruited through the Medical Recruitment Board exam have completed two years of service and become eligible for permanent posts and time-scale pay.

This protest comes a month after the nurses withdrew protest following assurances from officials of the DMRHS. “We are given a salary of `7,700. How is that enough to run a family? If the husband and wife are both nurses, is `15,000 enough to run a family, pay school fees and procure provisions?” said Aasha, a nurse who had travelled all the way from Tirunelveli for the protest. 

In comparison, nurses on the government’s payroll draw close to `40,000. While a government order does say they are eligible to government jobs after two years of service on contract, the regularisation is subject to availability of vacancies.  “Some nurses who cleared the MRB exam as early as 2011 haven’t been absorbed into the government service yet. Clearly there aren’t vacancies to accommodate this batch, which has just completed two years of service,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan. 

“However nurses are important to us and we will work towards expediting the process of assimilation,” he told Express. Officials at the DMRHS held talks with the representatives of nurses from each district in the course of the day. A senior official in the Health Department observed that the pay for contract nurses must be hiked to `15,000.