Tag: Nurse

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Nurses’ strike could last to Christmas, says union

The Health Secretary called on the RCN to accept the Government’s pay offer so the NHS can “get back to focusing on patients”…reports Asian Lite News

Nurses could strike until Christmas if they cannot reach a deal with the Government, a union leader has warned. Royal College of Nursing (RCN) leader Pat Cullen called for the Government to improve its pay offer to avoid further strikes but assured patients that nurses will come off picket lines to deal with emergencies.

The RCN announced on Friday that its members will walk out for 48 hours from 8pm on April 30 after rejecting the Government’s pay offer.

NHS nurses in emergency departments, intensive care and cancer wards will take industrial action for the first time.

When asked if the union will stop strike action, Cullen told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg On Sunday programme: “No, our nurses will absolutely not do that.

“We have strike action for the end of this month and the beginning of May. Then we will move immediately to ballot our members. If that ballot is successful it will mean further strike action right up until Christmas.”

The union leader added that nurses saw a one-off Covid bonus offered by the Government as a “bribe”.

NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery told the programme it is “not sustainable” for the NHS to continue managing strike action.

She said: “It’s really clear to me that it’s not sustainable going forward for the NHS to manage strike action. It feels like a really ugly situation to say we are going to have strikes now until Christmas. We really desperately need the Government to come to the table alongside the unions coming to the table to sort this out.”

In an opinion piece for The Sun, Health Secretary Steve Barclay warned that fresh nurses’ strikes would have a “deeply concerning” impact on emergency services and cancer care.

The Health Secretary called on the RCN to accept the Government’s pay offer so the NHS can “get back to focusing on patients”.

On Sunday afternoon, Barclay tweeted a copy of a letter he had sent to Cullen which urged the union to reconsider further industrial action and said he would welcome a meeting to discuss avoiding strikes.

In the letter, Barclay said the most recent pay offer was a “fair and reasonable settlement”, adding: “The decision to refuse at this stage any exemptions for even the most urgent and life-threatening treatment during this action will, I fear, put patients at risk.”

On Friday, Unison’s NHS members accepted the NHS pay offer of a 5% pay rise this year and a cash payment for last year. However, 54% of RCN members voted to reject the deal.

The turnout among RCN members employed on NHS Agenda for Change contracts in England was 61%. The RCN announcement came as around 47,000 junior doctors finished their 96-hour strike in a separate dispute over pay at 7am on Saturday.

ALSO READ-Have you thought about becoming a healthcare support worker in the NHS?

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-Top News UK News

Strike averted as nurses accept pay offer in UK

It called for the Scottish government to “live up” to its promise to reform the Agenda for Change and make nursing a career of choice once again…reports Asian Lite News

NHS strikes in Scotland have been averted after unions representing midwives and nurses voted to accept the Scottish government’s pay offer.

Just over half of Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members voted in the ballot, with 53.4% of those voting to accept the offer equating to an average 6.5% increase in 2023/24.

About half (49%) of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) members voted in the ballot, with 69% voting to accept the deal.

Last week, Unison and the GMB unions also voted to accept the pay offer.

The RCN said that while the vote ends an immediate threat of strike action, a significant minority of members voted to reject the offer, demonstrating their “continued frustration and concern” about the ongoing staffing crisis in the NHS.

It called for the Scottish government to “live up” to its promise to reform the Agenda for Change and make nursing a career of choice once again.

Colin Poolman, director of RCN Scotland, said: “Our members voted for strike action with a heavy heart. Their commitment to standing up for patients and their profession brought the Scottish government back to the table. Members have narrowly voted to accept this offer but the Scottish government must be under no illusion, much more is required for nursing staff to feel valued and to ensure Scotland has the nursing workforce it needs. They must live up to their promises. The Agenda for Change framework must be modernised to recognise the clinical skills and expertise of nursing staff and further improvements to pay, terms and conditions are needed in the years ahead.”

Meanwhile, the RCM called for an improvement to working conditions across Scotland after a damning report last year showed three-quarters of midwives had considered leaving the profession.

Jaki Lambert, RCM director for Scotland, said: “This is a good offer that gives our members most of what they had been asking for, including an above-inflation pay award and a commitment to reform of NHS pay bands.

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“While pay is crucial, this was also about midwives feeling seen and valued. Improving retention through better working conditions, professional midwifery issues and the wellbeing of staff are also a key component of this.

“Most importantly, it was also about our members standing tall and being prepared to take action to ensure better care for women, babies and their families.”

Last month, Scotland’s health secretary, Humza Yousaf, committed to establishing a nursing and midwifery taskforce which will recommend a series of actions to support the retention and development of existing nursing staff and encourage more people to consider a career in nursing.

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-Top News UK News

Nurses to suspend stir as talks start

Members of the Royal College of Nursing had been due to walk out for 48 hours next Wednesday, the latest in a series of stoppages unprecedented in the union’s 106-year history…reports Asian Lite News

Nurses in England will pause months of strike action over pay after the U.K. government agreed to hold “intensive talks”, both sides said on Tuesday.

Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) had been due to walk out for 48 hours next Wednesday, the latest in a series of stoppages unprecedented in the union’s 106-year history.

They are part of a wave of U.K. industrial action which has seen workers ranging from paramedics to train drivers to teachers go on strike over the last year amid decades-high inflation.

Nurses and ambulance drivers have even walked out on the same day for the first time.

The government has been refusing to discuss pay levels for the current fiscal year, insisting salaries have already been set for public sector workers by independent pay review bodies.

Ministers also argue that the country, which is grappling with a cost-of-living crisis as inflation remains stubbornly above 10 percent, cannot afford increases at or near these decades-high rates.

But in a joint statement Tuesday with the RCN, the Department of Health and Social Care said the two camps had agreed “to enter a process of intensive talks”.

“Both sides are committed to finding a fair and reasonable settlement that recognises the vital role that nurses and nursing play in the National Health Service and the wider economic pressures facing the United Kingdom,” it said.

“The talks will focus on pay, terms and conditions, and productivity enhancing reforms.”

The joint statement noted that Health Secretary Steve Barclay will meet with RCN representatives on Wednesday to begin the discussions.

“The Royal College of Nursing will pause strike action during these talks,” it added.

Health staff say wages that have not kept pace with inflation over the past decade, combined with the current cost of living crisis, have left them struggling to pay their bills.

Opinion polls have shown broad public support for the nurses’ plight, with a majority backing their walkouts for better pay.

Govt recommends 3.5% pay rise for nurses  

The government has recommended offering millions of public sector workers below inflation pay increases.

Judges, police officers, teachers, nurses doctors and dentists in England will be offered a 3.5% pay increase under proposals.

The recommendations will now be considered by independent pay review bodies.

Public sector workers are holding strike action after rejecting last years pay deal.

Various government departments published their evidence to pay review bodies for the 2023-24 financial year on Tuesday.

Pay review bodies can decide to suggest a higher award but the government will make a final decision.

The government has left room for increases above 3.5% for some workers, if the economic outlook improves, cuts are made elsewhere or borrowing is increased.

The GMB union called the pay offer a “disgrace” which will not prevent ongoing ambulance strikes.

The proposal “shows this government’s true colours”, Rachel Harrison, GMB’s national secretary, said.

“Ambulance workers – and others across the NHS including cleaners, porters and care workers- who are the backbone of the health service deserve better.

“Ministers have no intentions of recognising the true value of the entire workforce.”

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has written to the National Education Union urging it to call off teachers strikes next week across the North of England if it wants to negotiate pay.

NEU joint General Secretary Kevin Courtney said there was “nothing substantial” in the education secretary’s letter and the strikes would go ahead.

But he added: “Our national executive meets on Saturday, they could change that decision.

“There is time for the [Department for Education] to make clear that they will talk about pay rises for this school year and would fund those potential pay rises.

“There is time for them to tell us they are willing to move beyond a 3% pay rise for next September and to fund such pay rises”.

Latest figures show for inflation was 10.1% in January, down from 10.5% in December 2022.

Sara Gorton, head of health at the union Unison, said: “If the government was actively trying to worsen the crisis in the NHS, it couldn’t have done better than this.

“Vacancies are at an all-time high and this pitiful pay suggestion does nothing to solve the growing staffing emergency.”

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-Top News UK News

Nurses union announces strike; latest crisis for health service

People pass by the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in Liverpool, Britain, April 1, 2022. (Photo by Jon Super/Xinhua/IANS)

A record 7.1 million people are waiting for treatment, with long delays for tests as well as routine and emergency care…reports Asian Lite News

With record waiting times, staff shortages, financial black holes and now a nurses strike over pay, the UK’s state-run National Health Service is facing an unprecedented crisis.

The walk-out by nurses next month heaps fresh misery on the much-loved but creaking institution, just as winter illnesses bite and as the country faces a prolonged recession.

Matthew Taylor, head of the NHS Confederation, which represents the service in England and Wales, said demand for frontline care is “sky-rocketing” .

“Waiting time standards are deteriorating despite the sterling efforts of NHS staff — and the winter months look to be very bleak and the busiest on record,” he said recently.

A record 7.1 million people are waiting for treatment, with long delays for tests as well as routine and emergency care.

Richard Sullivan, a cancer care specialist, said some 14,000 prostate cancer cases were “missing” due to a lack of diagnosis, with around one in 18 waiting more than a year.

“You shut down your health system… you are going to lead to a massive number of people with stage shifts, where their cancers become more advanced,” he added. Difficulty in replacing departing staff has deepened the crisis.

Record inflation has led to gloomy forecasts of a prolonged recession and cuts to public spending, potentially extending the crisis.

Sullivan, professor of cancer policy and global health at King’s College London, said the NHS was “burning hot for years” even before Covid placed extra burdens.

“Once you start overheating the motor and constantly burning it…you’re wearing it out,” he added.

“I think we’re in for a really rough ride over the next few years.”

Until the early 1990s, the UK spent around 5 percent of its GDP on the NHS, which is funded through a tax on earnings of employees, employers and the self-employed.

Buoyed by a strong economy during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Labour government at the time almost doubled spending to 9.9 percent.

But it remained around that level following the 2008 financial crash as an incoming Tory-led government battled to reign in public debt, despite an ageing population.

Compared to its nearest European neighbours, the UK was seventh highest in terms of healthcare spending as a proportion of GDP in 2019.

Germany and France both spent around 11 percent.

The UK figure shot up to 12 percent during the pandemic, when NHS workers were hailed as heroes with weekly doorstep applause, but is now falling again.

As well as denting public finances, inflation has caused a wider cost-of-living crisis that has led to large-scale industrial action across multiple sectors.

One senior nurse at a London hospital, who gave her name only as Ameera, said the cost-of-living crisis had hit healthcare workers hard.

“I have no idea what to do, what my colleagues are going to do, they’re really struggling to feed their families, they’re having to use food banks,” she said.

The Royal College of Nursing says that nurses’ wages have fallen sharply in real terms over recent years. The most common grade for NHS, known as “Band 5”, accounts for about 42 percent of nurses in England and has a salary range of between £27,055 and £32,934.

Ameera warned that nurses were being dangerously overworked as the service struggles to replace departing staff due to more stringent immigration rules post-Brexit and a tight labour market.

NHS England currently needs to fill more than 130,000 jobs, including 12,000 hospital doctors and 47,000 nurses, preventing it from making inroads into reducing the Covid treatment backlog.

Nurses are trained to look after four patients on a shift, but have been asked in some cases to care for double that number, she added.

“We’ve only got one pair of eyes,” she said. “The mood amongst the nurses is just so low.”

ALSO READ-Rail strike in US may hit economy  

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-Top News UK News

Nurses set to hold biggest-ever strike in UK

The exact nature of the strikes is yet to be determined, but it will likely see patients facing disruption to operations and appointments amid record NHS waiting lists…reports Asian Lite News

Counting is under way in the ballot of more than 300,000 Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members – but it’s believed enough nurses have voted for a winter walkout.

The industrial action is set to take place within a few weeks, possibly before Christmas, as the RCN demands a pay rise of 5% above inflation.

General secretary Pat Cullen said: ‘Our strike action will be as much for patients as it is for nurses – we have their support in doing this.’

The exact nature of the strikes is yet to be determined, but it will likely see patients facing disruption to operations and appointments amid record NHS waiting lists.

‘This will see the majority of services taken out, and picket lines across the country,’ a union source said.

It comes as Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt face the huge challenge of tackling a £50 billion hole in public finances.

In a statement, Cullen said: ‘Patients are at great risk when there aren’t enough nurses.

‘Huge numbers of staff – both experienced and newer recruits – are deciding they cannot see a future in a nursing profession that is not valued nor treated fairly.’

She added: ‘As we begin action, politicians in every part of the UK will be challenged to back their nursing staff and understand the strength of public support.’

The RCN said there are record nursing vacancies and in the last year 25,000 nursing staff around the UK left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register.

It said recent analysis showed an experienced nurse’s salary has fallen by 20% in real terms since 2010, adding the goodwill of nursing staff is being ‘exploited’ by UK governments.

During the ballot, the RCN had argued this year’s below-inflation pay award came after years of squeezes on nurse’s salaries.

Research commissioned by the union has found average pay fell by 6% between 2011 and 2021 – once inflation was taken into account – compared with a 4.6% drop for the whole economy.

Starting salaries for nurses in England are currently just above £27,000, rising to nearly £55,000 for the most senior nurses.

The RCN said the average pay for a full-time established nurse was just above £32,000 last year – similar to average pay across the economy.

But the government has argued it has met the recommendations of the independent NHS Pay Review Body in giving its award.

And it followed a 3% pay rise last year, in recognition of work during the pandemic, despite a public-sector pay freeze.

This is the first time the RCN has balloted all its members for strike action in its 106-year history.

In 2019, RCN members went on strike in Northern Ireland over pay, while nurses who are members of Unison in England walked out in 2014 over pay.

A host of other major health unions, including Unison, the Royal College of Midwives, GMB and Unite, have all started to, or are planning to, ballot members.

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India News Kerala

Rtd SC judge roped in to save life of Kerala nurse sentenced to death in Yemen

Only July 25, 2017, she injected Talal with sedatives with the aim of sedating him and take her passport back and flee…reports Asian Lite News

With death staring at Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya, jailed in Yemen after being pronounced guilty of killing a Yemeni national, a collective ‘Save Nimisha Forum’ working for Nimisha’s release, has managed to get retired Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph to act as interlocutor to see how her life can be saved.

The Forum operating in Delhi has been trying to see how this can be achieved and Joseph said he is happy to contribute.

Joseph will soon get a team of former diplomats and if necessary he will travel to Yemen to speak to the family of the Yemeni national.

The Forum is also getting ready to bring the little daughter of Priya and her mother to the forefront and they are also getting ready to travel to Yemen to make one last attempt.

According to Yemeni rules, the only possibility of any reprieve for Nimisha is if the family of Talal Mahdi pardons her for blood money — compensation paid by an offender or his kin to the family of the victim — in accordance with the Sharia law and diplomatic intervention. This is what the Forum is aiming for and hopes that Joseph will be able to swing it.

It was last month that a Yemeni court dismissed the appeal of Priya in the murder case of Talal Mahdi, in which she, along with another person, are the prime accused.

The two have been sentenced to death for the murder of Mahdi in 2017.

Hailing from Palakkad, Nimisha a nurse by profession, reached Yemen in 2012 with her husband. In 2015, with the help of Talal Mahdi, she set up a clinic. By this time her husband and their child had returned home.

Soon, differences cropped up between her and Mahdi and she accused him of torturing her and taking away her passport, making her trip back to her home state impossible.

On July 25, 2017, she injected Talal with sedatives with the aim of sedating him and take her passport back and flee.

But things went wrong and he collapsed after being administered the sedative.

Realising that Mahdi has died, with another’s person help she disposed off his body, which was cut into pieces in a water tank.

Four days later, the crime surfaced and both were arrested and while Nimisha was sentenced to death, the other person was sentenced to life.

The news came out only when a Kerala gospel worker reached a jail in Yemen to preach. Nimisha handed over a letter to him describing the entire incident.

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Arab News News World

Israeli nurses strike over violence against medical staff

Israeli nurses strike over violence against medical staff

The Israeli Nurses Association (INA) has declared a 24-hour strike in all hospitals and clinics nationwide in protest of violence against nurses in the country’s health system…reports Asian Lite News

The nurses demand the immediate implementation of a government plan to eradicate violence against them in hospitals, said a statement issued by the INA on Wednesday.

“This is a serious situation for years, in which the state abandons the nurses without any means of protection against the incessant violence in the health system,” said Ilana Cohen, INA Chairperson.

Israeli nurses strike over violence against medical staff

“It is very sad that those who are on the medical front for everyone day and night, including the fight against the coronavirus, do not get the basic right to return home safely,” she added.

“Every incident of violence is like a terrorist attack and must be addressed accordingly,” Cohen said.

The nurses warned that if the violence continues, they will go on another strike, Xinhua news agency reported.

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Arnon Bar-David, Chairman of the Histadrut, Israel’s largest workers union, sent a letter to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, demanding an urgent discussion on the issue.

“Those who pay for the violence are not only victims in the workplace but Israeli society as a whole,” he wrote.

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Education Lite Blogs

The men who created an enduring nursery of excellence

In May 1950, Ghosh opened the first IIT in a building at Esplanade East in Kolkata; by September 1950, however, the scene had shifted to the Hijli Detention Camp…reports Sourish Bhattacharyya.

Even as the Second World War was coming to an end, a motley group of people laid the foundation of the enduring edifice of India’s scientific and technological soft power — the IIT system.

It included three men who successively served as members of the Viceroy’s Executive Council — Nalini Ranjan Sarkar, an acolyte of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and 1933 FICCI President; ICS officer-turned-Tata Steel executive Ardeshir Dalal, who’s better known for his staunch opposition to the Partition of India; and Sir Jogendra Singh, an editor, author and former prime minister of Patiala who introduced mechanised farming in Punjab.

IIT Kharagpur (Wikipedia)

An author of the Bombay Plan, the 1944-45 vision document for India’s economic development drafted by industrialists J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Birla and Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas, Sir Ardeshir, as Member for Planning and Development of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, persuaded the U.S. government to offer doctoral fellowship to Indian scientists so that they come back qualified enough to lead the newly established Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Sir Ardeshir, however, soon realised that this arrangement with the U.S. government could only be a short-term solution and that the emerging new India needed institutions that would become nurseries for qualified scientific and technical manpower.

Sir Jogendra, who succeeded Sarkar as the Member for Health, Lands and Education (an odd mix, but that was how it was!) after the Bengali politician quit in the wake of Mahatma Gandhi’s imprisonment in 1942, took the next big step in 1946. He constituted a 22-member committee, headed by Sarkar, to prepare the blueprint for the establishment of ‘Higher Technical Institutions’ to drive post-war industrial development in India.

Two years before the committee started its deliberations, the 1922 Nobel Prize-winning English physiologist and biophysicist, Professor A.V. Hill, who was then the Secretary of the Royal Society, travelled across India from November 1943 to March 1944, on the invitation of the Secretary of State for India, to study the progress of scientific and industrial research. The immediate need for the exercise was to give a direction to the CSIR.

In his pithy report titled ‘Scientific Research in India’, Prof. Hill, among other things, mentioned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, as an example of excellence in teaching and research work, and stressed the need for “one or two technical institutes of the highest possible standing” to supply “first-class technical brains, trained in an atmosphere both of original research and of practical experience”.

Unsurprisingly, the Sarkar Committee recommended that institutes of higher technical education, modelled after the MIT, be set up around the country. Coincidentally, the three key people responsible for ensuring that the first IIT was launched in West Bengal were all Bengalis — Sarkar, after whom the main road of the IIT-Kharagpur campus is named; Education Secretary Humayun Kabir; and Sir J.C. Ghosh, the then director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, who eventually became the first director of the first IIT.

Ghosh prepared the blueprint for the IIT with the help of two bureaucrats posted at the Education Ministry — L.S. Chandrakant and Biman Sen. The argument they gave for the first IIT to be set up in West Bengal was that the state then had the highest concentration of engineering students.

Kabir convinced Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, West Bengal’s first Chief Minister, to find an appropriate location for the first IIT in his state. Roy settled for the Hijli Detention Camp at Kharagpur in the then Midnapore district, where a number of Bengali freedom fighters had been imprisoned during the struggle for independence.

It became the site for the first IIT, whose alumni, befittingly, include such diverse people as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Rono Bose, CEO, IndiGo Airlines, and Kiran Seth, founder of Spic-Macay, an organisation dedicated to the promotion of Indian classical music and dance among students.

For Dr Roy and Sarkar (who, incidentally, was one of the five pillars of the Congress in West Bengal), setting up the first IIT at the Hijli Detention Camp was the best possible tribute to the freedom fighters who were incarcerated there.

It also had the locational advantage of being close to the Kharagpur railway workshop, the Fuel Research Institute in Dhanbad and the Chittaranjan Locomotive Works — all potential training grounds for IIT students.

In May 1950, Ghosh opened the first IIT in a building at Esplanade East in Kolkata; by September 1950, however, the scene had shifted to the Hijli Detention Camp.

The IIT was formally inaugurated on August 18, 1951, by the country’s first Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who, incidentally, spent his formative years in Kolkata. It was he who coined the name Indian Institute of Technology, inspired of course by MIT.

On September 15, 1956, Parliament adopted the Indian Institute of Technology (Kharagpur) Act, declaring it to be an ‘Institute of National Importance. And it is said that Ghosh was responsible for its liberal provision, which, till date, have ensured that the IITs remain insulated from any attempt to politicise them or impede their autonomy.

ALSO READ-Religious leaders, musicians, chess players too pass out of IITs

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-Top News Kerala UAE News

Stranded Kerala nurses in UAE get job offers

The stranded nurses were offered jobs by the healthcare groups at Covid-19 vaccination and testing centres in the UAE, reports Asian Lite News

Healthcare groups in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have offered work to nurses from Kerala who have been stranded in the country due to Covid job scams, according to a news report.

In a report on Wednesday, Gulf News said: “Several nurses from the south Indian state were stranded after being duped by recruitment agencies who charged exorbitant commissions ranging from Rs 200,000 to Rs 350,000. They were offered jobs at Covid-19 vaccination and testing centres in the UAE.”

Following this report, prominent healthcare groups have now offered jobs to the affected nurses.

UAE
Dr Azad Moopen, Chairman and Managing Director of Aster DM Healthcare

Speaking to Gulf News on Friday, Azad Moopen, chairman and managing director of Aster DM Healthcare, said: “We are ready to hire whoever is qualified and have sufficient experience with or without licence. They should be able to perform well in the interview.

“If they don’t have a licence, we can start processing their visas and provide them support to try for licence.”

Sanjay M. Paithankar, Managing Director of Right Health, said his group was also willing to hire up to 40 nurses.

Dr Aman Puri, Consul General of India in Dubai

“We have just opened five more facilities in Dubai. They can join immediately. There are flats ready to accommodate them. We will arrange visa, accommodation, transportation plus basic salary till they get the DHA license. Our company will also help them appear for tests to get DHA licence,” he told Gulf News.

Speaking to Gulf News on Wednesday, Aman Puri, Consul General of India in Dubai, said stranded nurses must report the matter to the mission so that they can be assisted with repatriation.

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