Nurses voice opposition to recruitment thru exam

Bangladesh Nurses Oikya Parishad (BNOP) yesterday submitted a memorandum to the prime minister and health minister demanding prompt interventions in removing barriers to nurses' recruitment.

Two delegations from BNOP, an umbrella organisation of nine nurses' associations, went to the health minister's office at Bangladesh Secretariat and Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and handed over the memorandums.

"Our main demand is to recruit nurses based on merit and seniority, not through exams as declared by PSC (Bangladesh Public Service Commission)," BNOP Convener Ismat Ara Parveen told The Daily Star.

Nurses have been demonstrating since early April protesting a PSC circular of March 28 on recruiting 3,616 senior nurses in public hospitals.

The circular says applicants below the age of 36 and attaining Bachelor of Science and diploma in nursing had to take an exam.

However, BNOP Member Secretary Mustafizur Rahman said the exam prerequisite was unjust because nurses who attained the educational qualifications a few years back and approaching the age of 36 might be left out.

Bangladesh Basic Graduate Nurses Society General Secretary Nahida Akhter said several hundred nurses gathered at Central Shaheed Minar around 11:00am before proceeding towards Shahbagh.

Police put up barricades in front of the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka University and they staged a sit-in there before the delegations set off, she said.

Ismat said they were not allowed to enter the PMO, and so handed over the memorandum to officials concerned at the entrance. The other memorandum was handed over to Health Secretary Syed Monjurul Islam.

"The secretary assured of taking our demands into consideration," said Nahida.

According to World Health Organization, the doctor to nurse ratio should be 1:3, but the picture is just the opposite in Bangladesh where for 63,000 doctors, there are 38,000 nurses.

Two years back, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that 10,000 new posts would be created for nurses. Mustafizur said the posts were yet to be created while the March 28 recruitment circular was following an "unjust" process.

Most private healthcare sector jobs are insecure and many of the nurses are frustrated, he said. "This is even more frustrating when the country's health sector is suffering due to a shortage of nurses," he said.

Health ministry officials could not be reached for comment.