THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In the wake of rising protests and agitations in the state by nurses in many private hospitals amid allegations of poor working conditions and charges of exploitation, the government has decided to to constitute a committee to study the issue and submit recommendations within three months.The panel, headed by former State Human Rights Commission chairman S Balaraman, will go into entire gamut of the issue.Health Minister Adoor Prakash told a news conference here on Thursday that the government was aware that the existing laws guiding the functioning of private hospitals in the state were not sufficient or effective enough, leaving scores of nurses, mostly women at the mercy of hospital managements.A vast majority of private hospitals were not even implementing the minimum wages as stipulated by the government, not to mention of the pathetic working conditions like compulsory duty for 10- 12 hours, denial of wages for extra work, duty off and medical leave.Nurses organisations had also alleged that nurses are faced with mental agony at the workplace due to workload.The trend to appoint unqualified and under-qualified nurses is also on the rise.Apart from posing heavy risk to patients, the whole situation has become a big social issue, the ministersaid.The committee will have as members the Medical education director, health director, deputy education director of nursing, Nursing Council registrar and additional director of nursing services.Three zonal committees have also been formed under the panel.The minister said that the panel will look into the educational qualifications, Nursing Council registration (in the case of teaching institutions functioning in the hospitals ), health protection and other related problems facing nurses.Asked whether the problems of para-medical staff working in the hospitals too will also be addressed, the minister replied that the government had taken the initiative in the case of nurses and the problems of other sections of staff will also be addressed to streamline the sector.Asked about the death of a child at Vithura allegedly after being administered the newly- introduced pentavalent vaccine in government hospitals in the state, Adoor Prakash said that as per data 8,176 kids were administered the vaccine on that particular day in the state, but barring one none had any problem.In Vithura itself, eight children were administered the vaccine.‘’The postmortem report has to be analysed.An expert committee of the Union Government had been requested to come to the state and a representative of WHO is also expected soon to look into it,’’ the minister said.
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