KANNUR: Former Major-General of Indian Army, T. Padmini, who is the Florence Nightingale award winner for nurses, has supported the striking nurses saying it is for a genuine cause. “There are nurses who work for a salary as low as Rs 1,500 per month in Kerala, known for its labour welfare,” she pointed out. Maj. Gen. Padmini, who won the highest honour for nursing service in the country in 2009, had become the first major-general in the Indian military nursing service from the region after joining it 1967. Maj. Gen. Padmini said that the salary of nurses in the state has been very poor though they are professionally qualified and are capable of doing all the duties performed by doctors.
The hospital managements, majority of them run by doctors, exploit the nurses as ‘trainees’ giving them paltry sums and extracting much from them. “They do jobs independently as none of the hospitals have necessary staff strength as required by the Indian Medical Council”, she said. She feels that the rulers in the past had betrayed the nurses without giving them their due. On the claim of ‘six-hour’ working time, Maj. Gen. Padmini said that a nurse has to spend up to nine hours on duty. “No nurse can leave after six hours saying that my duty is over. She has to spend one-and-a-half hours as handover time. Before commencing the duty and ending it, she has to spend much time as ‘takeover’ and ‘handover’ period, introducing the situation of each patient, counting the drugs, taking stock etc. In case of an emergency, she would stay back to help the others till the patient is safe,” she said.
