THE MADRAS HIGH COURT witnessed high drama on March 7, when a batch of 41 students studying nursing in government colleges threatened to jump from the seventh floor of the additional law chambers in the high court premises unless given assurance of employment in the state’s government hospitals. After almost an hour of persuasion by advocates, police and fire service personnel, the students relented and gave up their agitation. They were later arrested by police and released on bail.

The unwarranted commotion was orchestrated by student representatives of Tamil Nadu’s 23 government-run nursing schools and four nursing colleges affiliated with the Dr. MGR Medical University, Chennai, which have an aggregate enrolment of 2,180 students. Nursing students in government institutions statewide are up in arms against a government order of January 18, 2012 which was upheld on January 8 this year by the Madras high court, permitting degree and diploma holders of private nursing institutions to be appointed nurses in government hospitals, hitherto the monopoly of government nursing college graduates. On January 8, a two-judge bench of the high court permitted the appointment of both government and private college nursing students in government hospitals on the basis of their performance in examinations conducted by the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MSRB).

The high court judgement has come as a great relief to the 8,000 students studying in Tamil Nadu’s 165 private nursing colleges and 204 private schools of nursing who have been fighting for their right to serve in government hospitals for nearly two decades. “We are very pleased with the GO and high court order upholding it. When doctors, teachers and other paramedical students who have graduated from private colleges are recruited through examinations conducted by the Tamil Nadu Public Services Commission and other agencies, why should graduates of private nursing colleges be the exception? This is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India,” says Chellamal Mariappan, secretary, Trained Nurses Association of India, Tamil Nadu.

According to informed medical educationists in Chennai, reservation of jobs in government hospitals for government nursing college graduates has its basis in the provisions of the Madras Medical Code formulated in 1902. Even after independence only two institutions — the Madras Medical College School of Nursing and the Christian Medical College and Hospital School of Nursing — offered nursing education and certification. Since then, despite the promotion of 165 private nursing colleges and 204 private nursing schools in the state, this discriminatory practice continued with government college nursing graduates taking full advantage of it.

However, infuriated by the unfair denial of jobs in government hospitals and primary health centres to private nursing graduates — a practice that prevails only in Tamil Nadu — since 2005, private college students and their associations have been filing a series of writ petitions in the Madras high court for an order outlawing this discrimination. Typically in the Indian tradition, this war is not over despite the January 8 high court order. A special leave petition (SLP) filed in 2011 by private college nurses is pending before the Supreme Court of India. The general expectation is that the apex court will confirm the Madras high court order and apply closure to this long-drawn out issue. 
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)