Terminated nurses unhappy with Ma Subramanian's assurance, protests to follow

The nurses terminated post Covid are planning on further protests to demand re-recruitment despite assurance to be taken back on duty when vacancies arise. The nurses associations say that it is unfair to terminate about 800 nurses, while retaining 2,400 of them and no proper response has been given to them when questioned about this disparity.

Close to 4,000 nurses were recruited on contract basis in 2020, for Covid duty in government institutions. The nurses had completed the examination and were shortlisted on merit basis by the Medical Recruitment Board (MRB) for the contractual hire by the government State Health Department. However, as the cases of Covid declined in government institutions, only 2,400 nurses were retained on duty and 800 of them were terminated.

"We are not happy with the selected people being retained on duty, while the rest of us were terminated. We want equal treatment for all as many of us left other jobs to serve in government institutions during the pandemic," said R Surya, a nurse who was terminated recently.

The nurses protested at the Directorate of Medical Services regarding the same on Monday and also met the secretary at the Chief Minister's cell to present their demands. After protests by nurses, Health Minister Ma Subramanian had said on Monday that the nurses will be taken back on duty as the fresh vacancies arise or new programmes are introduced by the government.

"We will be meeting the Chief Minister M K Stalin and Health Minister Ma Subramanian to stress our demands. We believe that there has been a disparity in retaining the staff and we will protest again if our demands are not met. Though we have stopped the protest immediately, we will continue it if our concerns are not addressed by the health department officials," said Rajesh Selvaraj, nurse and convenor of the association.

Meanwhile, the officials from the Directorate of Medical Education maintain the statement that the nurses will be taken back on duty when the new vacancies arise.