Supreme Court tells Centre to help ignored nurses

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, March 3, 2015:  The Supreme Court has slammed the Centre for doing nothing to ameliorate the working conditions of lakhs of nurses across the country, who are being "harassed and exploited" in various ways by private and government hospitals and nursing homes despite an apex court order three years ago.

 

The nurses had knocked the door of the apex court through a PIL in 2011, saying they were being treated like bonded labourers and even paid less than the minimum wages prescribed by the law. Narrating the kind of harassment, they said hospital authorities often withheld their original educational certificates to prevent them from quitting when they get better offers.

A large number of affected nurses are those who hail from Kerala for short stints in various hospitals across the country till they get lucrative offers in some foreign country, mostly in Gulf. Many hospitals, given the acute shortage of nurses, indulged in this practice.

"All their certificates, including B.Sc nursing certificates and nursing council registration certificate submitted earlier, are not returned when they want and some hospitals give them back after charging up to 50,000 as penalty. This is happening in most hospitals. An opportunity to excel in life is denied. There is no law for withholding original certificates," said Romy Chacko, the counsel for Indian Professional Nurses’ Association, the petitioner.
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As per the November 2011 order, the court had asked the Centre and state governments to crack down on hospitals indulging in harassment of nurses and also frame guidelines. The court has made it clear that such behaviour from hospitals shall not be tolerated any further and authorities have to act immediately.

 

Courtesy: Indiatoday