Vaccinate our families, give us counselling access, nurses tell Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa

The government must vaccinate the families of nurses at the earliest as they risk being infected by Covid-19, Waheeda, a nurse from Wenlock Hospital demanded of Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday.

She and several other nurses like her from different hospitals of the state participated in a video conference with Yediyurappa.

The CM lauded them for their selfless service during the pandemic. The nurses have been working in spite of personal tragedies in several cases. They have also had to distance themselves from families during this time, he said.

At present, there are 21,574 nurses working in Karnataka. The government has given an additional special allowance of Rs 8,000 to these nurses.

For the families of nurses who have succumbed to Covid-19, the government is giving Rs 50 lakh under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Bima Yojane.

So far, six such applications have been received. Of this, thee applications have been processed and the families have received money. The rest are pending and will be processed soon, he said.

Speaking to the CM, Santhosh, a nurse from Bidar, urged the government to extend risk allowance for the staff coming under the purview of the medical education department.

Another professional from Raichur Medical College, Rachoti Varada, asked the government to extend Jyothi Sanjeevini scheme to those under medical education department as well.

Harihar government hospital staffer Shwetha drew the attention of the CM towards mental health of nurses.

Since they continuously work in night shifts and they would have seen suffering of patients from close quarters, they need access to personal counselling, she said.

Another professional, Sandhya from Chikkamagaluru district hospital, spoke to the CM about the shortage of staff in hospitals and urged the government to hire them at the earliest.

In villages, people were still not completely aware of the complications arising out of the Covid infection. Many neglect getting treated as soon as they are infected and this is leading to deaths, Chamarajanagar district hospital representative Pradeep Kumar said.

Yediyurappa told reporters later that he spent close to an hour with nurses.

“They’ve made suggestions and have shared their problems. We will try to address them,” he said.