The PG students are stressing on increasing the workforce of staff nurses and call back nursing students, lab technician and emergency technician to replace the CRRIs who have finished their internship, to decrease the burden of doctors. “We demand that more MRB staff nurses on a temporary salary basis should be recruited to support the workforce of staff nurses. Due to lack of manpower, nurses are not able to manage many patients single-handedly, so so we need to increase the workforce by recalling the nursing students on leave and recruiting more staff members,” said Dr Mohanvel Moorthy, a member of Tamil Nadu PG Welfare Association.

The members of Tamil Nadu Post Graduate Welfare Association have requested Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan and Director of Medical Education Dr Narayana Babu to deploy additional staff members for non-COVID-19 related duties.

The students also demand salaries based on an hourly basis as the number of working hours have been increased due to the burden of COVID-19 cases. “Doctors are categorising the patients (triage) and overlooking the treatment as staff nurses undertake the investigations with the support of lab technician and CRRIs are of help to both doctors and staff nurses. After the shortage of CRRIs due to completion of certificate and postponing of the further exams, we are overburdened with the work,” said Jai Kumar, another member of the Tamil Nadu PG Welfare Association.

When contacted, Director of Medical Education Dr Narayana Babu said the demands of the PG students will be considered and additional staff will be deployed after analysing the requirements.