Village Health Nurses stage protest over shortage of staff

Tamil Nadu Government Village Health Nurse Association and Tamil Nadu Village Sector Community Health Nurse Federation of Tirunelveli district held a protest on Thursday, urging the government to address the shortage of Village Health Nurses (VHN) in the district.

The protest highlighted the non recruitment of VHNs needed for vacant posts and additional workload imposed on current VHNs to bridge the vacancy gap.

Ajitha, a Village Health Nurse from the Thisayanvilai block said that block requires 23 VHNs but currently only six are employed. These nurses are forced to travel extensively between different villages to conduct health checkups including weekly vaccination at Primary Health Centres and prenatal checkups for pregnant women. She stated “We were recruited for an 8-hour job, but we are working 12-hour shifts due to the added responsibility of updating data on the new U-Win online portal in addition to our regular struggles.”

A senior official from the primary health department highlighted the growing challenge faced by VHNs due to understaffing. She noted that long distance travel between the villages has severely impacted their health and quality of services. With some nurses handling workload of two to three villages at once she emphasised the urgent need for the government to recruit more VHN’s to improve the efficiency of Primary Health Centres.

Published - November 28, 2024 09:03 pm IST