Chennai, 2 December (H.S.) :The Tamil Nadu Nurses Empowerment Association has declared a series of statewide protests against the DMK government, citing the failure to deliver on a key 2021 election promise to regularise thousands of nurses employed on a contractual basis.
The decision to escalate their agitation was finalized at an executive committee meeting held in Madurai, where members voiced strong discontent over the continuous neglect of contractual nurses.
The protests are set to begin with a major demonstration in Madurai on December 4, followed by a statewide hunger strike in Chennai on December 18.
N. Subin, the association's general secretary, stated that nurses are the backbone of Tamil Nadu's healthcare system, yet their job security and working conditions are deteriorating. Subin specifically highlighted the distressing termination of nurses in December 2022 who had been recruited through the Medical Services Recruitment Board on an ad hoc basis to manage emergency staffing needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. He noted that the DMK had promised to regularise approximately 8,000 contractual nurses during the 2021 campaign, a promise that remains unfulfilled more than two years later.
The association’s demands include the immediate reinstatement of all nurses terminated in 2022, the swift initiation of the regularisation process, and structured talks with nurse representatives to resolve issues related to service benefits and working conditions. With no formal response from the government yet, the association expects thousands of nurses to
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Hindusthan Samachar / Dr. R. B. Chaudhary
