‘Exploitative work contracts making nurses vulnerable to sexual assaults’

Nurses had gathered in protest outside the Union Ministry of Health, seeking intervention in various cases of sexual harassment of female healthcare workers across States.

Nurses’ associations and women’s organisations have held that vulnerability of female nurses to sexual assaults stems from highly exploitative work contracts imposed by managements of private hospitals.

Reacting after the recent gang-rape of a nurse in Delhi, they said it is common to find many private hospitals forcing their nursing staff to work extra shifts, do overtime and at the same time deny them something as basic as transportation.

“Low salaries ranging from Rs.7,000 to Rs.12,000 per month, lack of allowances, repetitive assigning of double duties, shifts extending beyond eight hours, lack of hospital conveyance as well as regular safety audits of assigned workplaces, clamp-down on representative bodies of nursing staff etc. make nurses not only one of the most exploited sections of the skilled workforce, but also vulnerable to sexual assaults,” said a joint statement issued by the Federation of Indian Nurses Association (FINA) and Centre for Struggling Women (CSW).

Santosh Mahindrakar of FINA said: “Clearly, burdened by rising costs of living, which cannot be met by meagre salaries offered by private hospitals, and anxious to retain their jobs in a highly insecure job market, nurses are compelled to cooperate with hospital managements.” She added: “Home assignments for nursing or in-house patient care, especially when unregulated/unchecked by the local authorities and the hospital concerned, has become one of the unfortunate avenues through which nurses are being exposed to unsafe work conditions.”

Maya John from CSW said even in the recent case of gang-rape, the nurse was working a 12-hour shift at the five-star hotel where she was assigned to an ailing patient – a workload that is a violation of the stipulated eight-hour work day. It is indeed ironic that while private placement agencies and private hospitals take precautions when it comes to checking the credentials and abilities of the nurse, no such concern or effort is made to check the environment at the workplace to which the nurse is assigned, she said.

On July 9, nurses had gathered in protest outside the Union Ministry of Health, seeking intervention in various cases of sexual harassment of female healthcare workers across States like Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.