Chennai: Nurses who are fighting the Coronavirus pandemic have started an unique way of protest over being ‘grossly underpaid’– e-mails. Many nurses hired through Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB) and employed by hospitals on contract basis for years, are part of the agitation.
From yesterday till today, 8,000 nurses are sending emails to the State and Central governments asking for regularisation of salaries.
General secretary of the Tamilnadu MRB Nurses Empowerment Association, G Subin says, “The target was to send 6,000 emails, but the response has been overwhelming. These nurses have been recruited in 2015 after the MRB conducted an examination. Close to 10,000 nurses were recruited for a salary of Rs 7,700 on the promise that they would be given time scale pay.”
However, five years later, they have still not been made permanent. Only 1,800 nurses were given time scale payment, it is said. It may be noted that in 2018, the Madras High Court had said that the contract nurses were working as much as the permanent nurses and must be given equal pay.
After the lockdown began, Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisami had said that doctors and nurses who are working during the pandemic would be given a double pay. Subin says that the nurses in Covid wards are working really hard.
“The contract nurses are young. They are the ones doing a lot of work during this time. But they are not given allowances. They get a yearly hike of Rs 500. We are demanding equal pay for equal amount of work.”
He said that earlier when the government makes such promises of reward, they later tell us that it is not applicable for contract nurses.
The double pay is for nurses in Covid wards, Subin says that nurses working in other wards are also exposed to the virus and is risky. The e-mails are sent to Chief Minister, Health Minister and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.