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Nursing A Grouse

Nurses demand a more traditional and convenient dress code

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Nursing A Grouse
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THE nursing staff at the Regional Mental Hospital in Yerawada and the Aundh Chest Hospital in Pune are a harassed lot. Threatened with wage cuts and barred from entering the premises because they have adopted a revised dress code, they are left nursing a grouse against the hospital authorities.

It all started with Dil Ka Doctor, a telefilm starring Anupam Kher, in which nurses were shown as romancing rookies dressed in drop-dead outfits and waltzing in the wards. Agitating nurses were more provoked than provocative. Soon the dress code took precedence over the code of conduct. 

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A fortnight ago, the Pune-based Maharashtra Government Nurses Federation (MGNF) staged a dharna at Churchgate, Bombay, agitating for a dress code more in keeping with their profession. Their demand: camel-coloured salwar-kameezes, black shoes and an apron with the nursing badge attached to it. The leaders of the 15,000-strong Federation met Chief Minister Manohar Joshi to apprise him of the situation, and submitted a memorandum detailing their grievances.

 According to Anuradha Athawale, president of MGNF and chairperson of the All-India Government Nurses Federation, the existing dress code, which has helped create an unflattering stereotype, had never had their approval. Condemning the crackdown on the new-uniformed nurses in Pune, Latur, Aurangabad and Nasik, she says: "Nowhere in the Indian Nursing Council Act does it mention that we should comply with a certain mode of dressing. The present uniform has been styled along British lines and I think it is time that we as Indians should wear something that suits our country and our people." Incidentally, only overweight people or nurses suffering from physical deformities are permitted to wear white sarees.

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The code which prescribes white shoes, white socks, a white cap and a knee-length frock for nurses in government hospitals, has resulted in ailments for the wearers. Financially, the uniform and laundry allowance accorded to the state Government nurses is half of what their Central Government counterparts get. "How do they expect us to keep our uniforms clean?" queries one nurse. Physically too, the starched cap, an essential element of the uniform, causes "problems relating to neck movement, especially spondylytis, besides being a source of infection". Between inflation and infection, nurses are incensed that unlike the pretenders in the film they have to be wary of their movements given the uniform they have to wear. 

It was the movement for change, however, that made the Government give up its watch-and-wait approach, leaving the agitating staff optimistic. "When we met State Health Minister Daulatrao Aher and Chief Minister Joshi, they appeared sympathetic to the cause. It will take time, because we are women but the changes will happen," says Athawale. And if the Maharashtra Government decides to skirt the issue, the Federation plans to go ahead with the proposed changes. Incidentally, some of the city's hospitals, such as the Bombay Port Trust Hospital, had accepted the changes a couple of years ago. The new uniforms which have been adopted by nurses in Bihar, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Kashmir have also been accepted at the ESIS Hospital in Pune, with the Gujarat Government having dispensed with the caps as long as five years ago.

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 In the meantime, detractors such as the nurses of the Brihan-mumbai Municipal Hospital and the Paramedical Union brush aside the issue as trivial. More crucial for them are the issues of increased workload, dearth of avenues for professional growth and prolonged procedures to obtain degrees in nursing. Admits Vimal Paranjpe, general secretary, that while changes like increasing the length and flare of the dress were necessary, the accompanying hue and cry is unwarranted. Again, a few nurses, while welcoming the change, express doubts about the efficacy of enforcing the new uniform. "The salwar kameez allows greater freedom, especially in male wards with floor beds. But the colour white should be preserved," says a senior nurse from the Nair Hospital, Bombay. "Also, there should be complete uniformity of pattern from head to foot and the code should be formally prescribed once and for all to avoid complications in the future."

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Even as the executive committee of the Indian Nursing Council crossed out the alternative, government sanction for the changes was granted: yes to salwar-kameezes; no to the camel colour. "Unacceptable," say the nurses once again. They are already wearing the new camel-coloured uniforms in government-run hospitals. "More than 50 per cent of nurses have adopted the new uniform without resistance from most hospital authorities," says Kamal Vaykole, general secretary of the Mah-arashtra Government Nurses Federation. 

Meanwhile, authorities and the nursing staff at the Regional Mental Hospital and the Aundh Chest Hospital continue to lock horns over the issue. First over the code; now over colour. And applying balm on the wounded feelings all around may take precedence before a decision is finally made. 

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