How Empty Promises Led to the Pitiable Condition of Indian Nurses
As COVID-19 raged, nurses are being described as COVID warriors and salutes coming in from all quarters. Those employing military terminology should know that an army does not merely live on salutes, so are nurses.
Nurses treat a COVID-19 patient at a hospital in Varanasi, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. Photo: PTI
Labour4 hours ago
It wasnât until #InternationalNursesDay, on May 12, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi thought to tweet to specifically thank Indiaâs âhardworking nursing staff, who is at the forefront of fighting COVID-19â. It was a lukewarm message, compared to the last time when he had thanked nurses (as opposed to all healthcare workers) on May 12 one year earlier.
Watch: What India s Nurses Need From Us to Fight the War on COVID-19
In conversation with Usha Krishna Kumar, president of the Nurses Welfare Association of India.
Video10/May/2021
It is time we ask why can’t we value our nurses like defence personnel in the war against COVID-19? Â Even before the pandemic hit, those in the nursing profession in India were underpaid, over-worked, treated with too little respect. As a result, it is critically under-staffed across the country.
Now, as millions of Indians are reeling under the pressure of the second wave of the pandemic, those nurses are the ones helping save lives. Nurses are the ones who are administering vaccine shots. They are making visits to patients in home isolation. As a result, it is putting them on the brink of physical, emotional and psychological breakdown.