Nurses stage protest to fulfil demands

A scuffle broke out between police and nurses from various state-run hospitals when the latter broke the police barricade outside Swasthya Bhavan at Salt Lake while staging demonstration to fulfil their various demands. 

Hundreds of nurses from Nursing Unity, an organization, on Monday took out a rally from Nicco Park and it ended at Swasthya Bhavan. 

The nurses tried to break the police barricade to enter into the Swasthya Bhavan. 

The police tried to prevent them from entering as they were in large number. The incident had led to a scuffle between the two groups. There was, however, no report of any injury in the incident. Police have detained some nurses for creating trouble and later released them.

Members of the Nursing Unity alleged that various posts of nursing grade - I had been remaining vacant at many government hospitals for a long time. 

They demanded the immediate filling up of these posts. They also said that many candidates have not got any employment after completing BSC nursing course. 

Prabhati Pal, state secretary of Nursing Unity, said: “We had appealed to the state government to fill up the vacant posts of nursing grade - I. Around 4,000 candidates were sitting idle after completing BSC nursing course. They are yet to get any employment. Posts were vacant for a long time.”  

A team from the organisation later submitted a memorandum to the senior health officials urging them to meet their demands. 

Pal said they had submitted the memorandum to the Director of Health Service (nursing). They will organise bigger movement if their demands were not fulfilled soon.