Some years ago, Sister Stella, with her show, “Melodies for Maladies”, on a private radio channel, was all the rage. No prizes for guessing how her persona was constructed: she was, of course, a West Asia-returned nurse from Kerala, who spoke in an exaggerated Malayalam accent.
Stereotypical as it may sound, there is no denying the basic premise of this parody: that the image of a nurse cannot be anything but that of a Malayali.
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Walk into any hospital here and you know that this image comes from some solid facts on the ground. Though there has never been an official count to determine the exact number of Malayali nurses in town, they constitute anywhere between 60 to 70 per cent of the total nursing care staff.
Bindu Mathew, Associate Professor at St. John's College of Nursing, says well over 60 per cent of her students are from Kerala.
“They have a reputation of excellent patient care,” she says. Of late, quite a number of young girls of Tibetan origin and from the North-Eastern States too are joining nursing colleges, she adds.
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Profiles in courage
Mostly from poor families in Kerala villages, the lives of many of these young women are steeped in courage and hard work.
Twenty-eight-year-old Sushma (name changed), who works as a nurse in a reputed private hospital, got married only two months ago. “I educated my sister, who is also a nurse now, and then got married,” she says.
Though her earnings are not commensurate with the hours of work she puts in, she has also managed to support her parents.
“I got into nursing because all my friends did,” she says. It was the most “natural” choice given that there is an established tradition in Kerala of young girls from poor families going into nursing.
“Since opportunities in Kerala are few, most of us have to leave the State,” she says.
Education
Zachariah Mar Nicholovos, Metropolitan of the Northeast American Diocese of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, attributes the long association of Kerala women with the nursing profession to a number of factors. While the contribution of churches to this phenomenon is undeniable, the fact that the State had had a large number of school-educated girls very early on was an important factor. “If any profession needed women who had studied 10 grade, they were there in Kerala,” he says. It was a big economic incentive for girls from poor families, who defied the stigma attached to the profession to forge their careers.
Ticket out of poverty
Post-1970s, opportunities in West Asia opened new doors. “Nurses were one of the first skilled workforces to go out,” says the Metropolitan. “Now, when the wages are poor here, many hope to get one or two years' experience and find placements in the United Kingdom or the United States.” For many poor girls who are moderately educated, this is the singular “ticket out of poverty”.
“The diaspora of our women nurses extends not only to other parts of India, but to all parts of the planet, and has brought economic stability to a large number of families across the State,” writes Kochu Theresiamma, a senior nurse from Kerala working in the United States, in her blog. “Many would have gone under in those difficult days of social change when land failed to support them, and unemployment was rampant,” she writes.