Attack on the nurses

Such highhandedness and lack of sensing the consequences of such behaviour by the police only increases misgivings about them among the people. And who suffers in the meantime? The patients, the common people who have no stake in the whole situation. The nurses were protesting against a government move which allowed nurses passed from private institutes to get jobs in public hospitals. Their reasoning is that since there are thousands of jobless qualified nurses who passed from government institutions, therefore those who graduated from private institutions cannot be recruited. We cannot accept this logic and as such cannot sympathise with the nurses' demands. But we protest the brutal police action. The ministry concerned should have given the agitating nurses a good hearing and explained the situation to them. Just as it was not right for the nurses to go on strike, the ministry was at fault too for not taking their plights and appeals into serious consideration. But under no circumstances we can accept the police behaviour with them.

There must be a well-defined procedure to handle such situations. The authorities must devise a mechanism for listening to the problems of various groups which could be solved through talks, not by batons.

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