Celebrate
the True Spirit of International Nurses’ Day!
Outsourcing in
Government Hospitals, Down, Down!!
Speak out Against Denial of
Regularized Employment in Government Hospitals!!!
Friends,
On the occasion of International Nurses’ Day, let us step forward to reclaim the true
spirit and importance of this day. At a time when majority of us nurses across
the country are made victims of severe exploitation, and are given little
respect despite our vital services, we must commemorate this day by keeping
alive the spirit of unity. We must continuously expose and resist
discriminatory government policies that devalue the nursing profession and
compromise the healthcare needs of India’s citizens. In the context of steadily
declining state investment in public health – as reflected in the recent cut in
health budget – and the new 2014
recruitment rules, we must think about whether we
are doing everything possible to unite across hospitals and build a strong
nurses’ movement.
It is a well-known fact that our problems begin
from the very moment we enter the field of nursing education. Due to limited funding for higher education by
successive Governments, there is a huge shortage of government-funded nursing
colleges. As a result, many who wish to make nursing a profession are forced to
take loans so as to obtain nursing degrees from private nursing colleges. Burdened by bank loans, nurses graduating from such
private colleges are forced to take up jobs immediately. With the lack of
employment opportunities in government hospitals, as well as growing
contractualization of jobs in government hospitals, more than 60,000 nurses
annually end up working in the private sector where they earn substantially
less than government hospital nurses. In the private sector, nurses also face
innumerable problems such as denial of leave, special allowances, pay revision.
They also bear the burden of management pressure to put in more double shifts,
not to go on strike or form associations, etc., which is why private hospital
nurses are the most exploited of nursing personnel.
Given this steady privatization of healthcare due
to the lack of government-funded hospitals and nursing colleges, as well as
poor regulation of private health institutions, nurses must gather
strength across government and private hospitals. A broader unity
across the government and public sector institutions is important since most of
the contractual/outsourced nursing positions are being filled by colleagues
seeking to enter government hospitals in the hope of regular/permanent
employment in future. Hence, a united movement to stop
contractualization/outsourcing of nursing jobs in government hospitals, and to
ensure sanctioning of permanent employment in government hospitals, as well as parity
in pay and work conditions between private and government hospitals is essential.
Friends, the majority of nurses in India are
underpaid as well as overworked. Nurses in India work under nurse to patient ratios of 1:20 and even 1:40 in most hospitals, whereas
the prescribed norm of the World Health Organization, Indian Nursing Council,
etc. is a 1:6 ratio in
general wards. This problem of inhuman workloads, or basically, the
tendency to make one nurse perform the work of three, is characteristic not
just of private hospitals, but also of government hospitals. There
are then some important common problems/challenges that have the potential to
unite government and private hospital nurses and therefore to the potential to
create a larger and stronger movement of nursing personnel. Due to the
shortage of government hospitals, existing government hospitals are overflowing
with patients. In such conditions, government nurses are forced to accept
higher workloads or basically higher nurse to patient ratios. Moreover, in many
government hospitals, including ESI hospitals, no substantial recruitment has
taken place for several years, creating huge pressure on existing staff.
The truth is that the problems mentioned above do
not exist only in the individual hospitals where we work, but everywhere across
the country. In several government
hospitals, nurses continue to be denied MACP and are still fighting for proper
implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. The tendency towards privatization and
contractualization/outsourcing of jobs exists across different states. In many
states, due to the lack of affordable government nursing colleges, aspiring
students are forced to pay hefty fees to private colleges for nursing degrees.
Lack of regulation of the private institutes is one reason why an alarming rate
suicides, drop-outs and protests is reported among such institutions.
In such a context, certain common demands emerging from the nursing community are very crucial
as they expose the anti-people nature of state policies, as well as help unite
nurses across different states and hospitals. The demand for removal of
contractualization/outsourcing, introduction of permanent recruitment in
government hospitals, constitution of a wage board by each state government,
regulated nurse to patient ratios, the provision of more government hospitals,
nursing accommodation and nursing colleges are some of the common demands which will help build
better coordinated and combined struggles across hospitals. Let us give a new
lease of life to our discontent by raising these common demands and by
mobilizing nurses more effectively across the government–private sector divide.
NURSES’
UNITY AND STRUGGLE LONG LIVE!
United
Nurses of India
(An
initiative of Centre for Struggling Women)
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