Hyderabad: Despite Coronavirus symptoms, Tamil Nadu nurses forced to work

Hyderabad: Sending shock waves through public already jittery over the exploitative attitude of private hospitals for treatment of the deadly Coronavirus, the incident of a hospital forcing its nurses to report for despite signs of Coronavirus in them laid bare the money-minded nature of hospital managements.

A group of 12 nurses from Tamil Nadu, working at a private hospital in Mehdipatnam, were forced to work without quarantine leaves. After the nurses raised voice over the issues, the management of the private hospital held back their salaries for last month. Now, the nurses are now demanding immediate payment of salaries and also urging management to conduct Coronavirus tests for the entire team.

"We are around 12 nurses from Tamil Nadu who have been working for the past 11 months at the hospital. We had been requesting for the quarantine leaves as we were falling sick frequently. But, the management has been reckless towards our request. After several requests, tests were conducted only for two nurses and one tested positive and died. We are scared now and want to undergo tests as we used to stay with the Coronavirus positive nurses," said Veni, a nurse of Olive Hospital.

"We always used to get our salary by the 6th of every month and it is already 19 today, still we are not paid. Every other staff were paid including the sanitation and security staff. Only 12 nurses from Tamil Nadu are not paid and for the past five days we have not been going to duties and we will not go until we are paid," said another nurse.

Nurses and hospital management had different explanations on the issue. Management said as the nurses were irregular to the duties, it could not accommodate patients properly. Citing this as a reason, it held salaries of the nurses so far and the decision would be reviewed in two days, they said. Whereas nurses say that the hospital is forcing them to attend to duties even after they fall sick and that they want to undergo tests and the hospital is not supporting. Moreover, they are forcing nurses to vacate the hostel right away if they are not going to duties," said Lakshman Rudavath, the general secretary, Private Nursing Officers Association.

"We shared a circular with the HR manager of the hospital, as yesterday was Saturday the processing of payments were delayed and by Monday 5pm every nurse will receive their payments," said the nursing superintendent, Olive Hospital.

But, the hospital is yet to help the nurses undergo Coronavirus tests and there is no quarantine facility at the hostel. There is an immediate need for the management to take isolation measures for the safety of nurses.