Village health nurses oppose additional workload

Tamil Nadu nurses urge government action on additional work under Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Benefit Scheme affecting duties.

Stating that additional work in producing documents under Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Benefit Scheme is affecting them from discharging their duty, members of Tamil Nadu Government All Health Nurses Association urged the State government to take necessary action and submitted a petition to the Collector here on Friday.

Village health nurses (VHN) and auxiliary nurse and midwife (ANM), working in primary health sub-centres across the district, came to the Collectorate to submit a petition. They said they were asked to report to the primary health centres and the district health department frequently with records of beneficiaries under the scheme during which they cannot perform duty in the villages in meeting pregnant women and children. “The scheme is being implemented by the revenue and social welfare departments and their staff should be assigned the work,” they said.

They added that the scheme was included by the Health Department recently and the works were allotted to the VHNs. “We spend 80% of our time in implementing the scheme while 20% of our time is for taking care of our regular works,” they claimed. They wanted the scheme to be implemented only by the revenue and the social welfare departments so that their work is not affected.

Their other demands were promotion for eligible staff and hike in salary. They wanted the problems in the Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluation (PICME) software that captures the details of pregnant women to be solved.