CHENNAI: PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss appealed to the Tamil Nadu government to immediately regularise the services of contract nurses working in government hospitals and extend them full service benefits, including equal pay on par with permanent staff.
In a strongly worded statement, Ramadoss noted that the state health department currently employs around 13,000 nurses on contract alongside nearly 17,000 permanent nurses. Despite performing identical duties, he said, contract nurses continue to draw a consolidated monthly wage of just Rs 18,000, far below what permanent employees receive.
Calling the disparity “unjust and unreasonable”, the PMK leader argued that nurses entrusted with critical responsibilities in public health institutions deserve to be compensated fairly.
“Commitment and compassion can only thrive when wages are just. Paying significantly lower salaries to nurses carrying out the same work amounts to grave injustice,” he observed.
Ramadoss pointed out that the demand for regularisation is not new and has been upheld by judicial forums in the past. He referred to the 2015 batch of nurses recruited through the Medical Services Recruitment Board, who took their grievances to the Madras High Court, seeking service benefits.
The High Court ruled in favour of the nurses, and the Supreme Court subsequently dismissed the state government’s appeal, directing it to implement the court’s order.
Despite these legal precedents, the PMK leader said, successive governments have failed to implement the directive in full, leaving thousands of nurses in limbo.
He stressed that the contract nurses’ current agitation, which has been continuing for nearly four months, is a direct result of this prolonged inaction.
Ramadoss also condemned the arrest of around 750 nurses who were staging a hunger strike in Chennai on December 18.
Terming the arrests “unwarranted and unacceptable”, he said democratically organised protests should not be dealt with force.