Nurses from rural areas want their work nature improved

Members of Village/ Sector/ Community Health Nurses Joint Action Committee submitted a petition to District Collector M.S. Sangeetha on Tuesday highlighting the issues impacting healthcare professionals in Tamil Nadu.

Members of Village/ Sector/ Community Health Nurses Joint Action Committee submitted a petition to District Collector M.S. Sangeetha on Tuesday highlighting the issues impacting healthcare professionals in Tamil Nadu.

The nurses, mostly women, who were crucial to rural healthcare, faced significant challenges despite the government’s initiatives aimed at promoting women’s welfare and their work nature, they said.

The committee, in its petition, emphasised the challenges faced by the nurses in their fieldwork due to insufficient essential equipment such as laptops and BP monitor, which were essential for tasks like data entry and health check-up.

They also demanded that they be relieved from non-essential tasks such as family register data management and online registrations as they were an extra burden on them in addition to rendering healthcare service to the public.

District Coordinator of the committee Pandiammal said over 3,000 sub-centre positions remained vacant for more than three years, which led to increased work pressure for the workers.

The committee sought immediate appointment of trained Village Health Nurses (VHNs) in those vacant positions to reduce the workload. “With the establishment of new sub-centres, the committee advocates deployment of trained VHNs to address critical maternal and child health needs, which would further enhance healthcare access in rural areas.” she added.

Ms. Pandiammal said the inadequate training had resulted in challenges for healthcare personnel in effectively delivering their service.