• By Tawfeeq Irshad Mir
In Kashmir rumours are generally true than facts” and mystically nursing was galloped with such rumours, potentially incorporated with viral traits. After a long hitherto,virtual disgrace that was embedded init, progressively disappeared.
The sigh of nurse even the verbal prudence with such word was enough to splash an apathetic smile on the face of people, the psychological imbroglio of the common masses was satirically bereft of such profession.
Here I want to get you into the moments while you encountered with a nurse, an informal fantasy induced in you, a sense of downtrodden, so many impregnated false notations, you might have experienced all these things.
Five years have passed since govt college of nursing , GMC Srinagar was initiated . Till now there isn’t any seperate department or building for the same,so the concurrent batches are lodged in AMT School inside Shireen bagh campus.
It was only then that a Bsc nursing course was approved and initiated under the realms of GMC Srinagar. Just like other students I too thought that we might be having a seperate department inside GMC or there might be a seperate building for bsc nursing course . But it turned out to be something different . It was my first day in college, there wasn’t any sort of orientation .I felt like I was attending a lecture in private tuition centre . sometimes I wonder , should I call it a college or not, because it hasn’t any of the characteristics of a college. Isn’t it humiliatery that while pursuing my graduation ,I don’t feel like a college student. During the initial day’s of my college ,I thought that the principal will appear and will greet us and guide us for better future . At least we deserved few minutes from our principal if not monthly ,at least yearly .
But unfortunately , nothing Such happened . I have yet to hear from my principal. Now I am standing in third year and it took me four years to reach at this level , because of delays, inefficient administrative work , fragile approach and lot’s of negligency. Now I ask, to whom should I hold accountable for all this delay ?. comparative to Indian nursing council protocols and legalies , the degree is destined to finish in four years ,but here it’s stretching day by day. Here our precious time is humiliated time and again .
Recently one of my companion who is at clinical practice in supersupeciality hospital revealed a surprising and shocking incident in which his buttons of shirt were torn apart by an employee there just because the employee considered himself authoritarian of the entire intensive care ward.In one another incident ,a technician was reported continuously harassing nursing students on the pretext of abysmal things.when the students reported the same incident to their faculty ,they seemed helpless .
They couldn’t report the incident and there wasn’t any desiplinary action against the contender . Recently a group of nursing students were denied permission in Neuro lab for three consecutive days .
Few days ago, I was posted in ent OT here in SMHS Hospital along with two other companions , right from the inception to the time we left ,I felt like we were in strange world where I couldn’t find any belongings. I have read in books about scrub and circulatory nurses ,but I found it doesn’t exist in reality , there is no Such nursing in GMC Srinagar.
In GMC Srinagar , you won’t find any scrub and circulatory nurse.The incharge was looking at us with suspicious eyes thinking that we don’t have any job here .
He said “you shouldn’t come here , you don’t have any part to play here in ot “.
In April I was on clinical posting at GB Pant Hospital ,a doctor was conducting bone marrow aspiration and in hurry the doctor dropped the aspired fluid in wrong tube ,as attendent came to know about this ,she began cursing the staff nurse posted there .she used absurd , abusive language to address the same nurse . A nurse has become a soft target for humiliations.
Ranging from inside the department to the society outside ,a nurse is humiliated within every inch of kashmir.I was attending a pharmacology class in GMC Srinagar ,as the professor who was about to deliver a lecture said shockingly “what’s is this bsc nursing about?.
In December 2017, the Bsc nursing students from college of nursing GMC expressed their outrage over delay of results, while protesting at Pratap Park; the students said to media personnel that despite 6 months , their results have not been declared yet and that there was absolute loss of connect between the administrative unit of the said college and the administrative officials at Kashmir university, as the course is registered there. When the students approached the University officials, the officials said that their external practical award sheet was missing, after they conveyed the same to the administrative unit in respected nursing college. This aroused utter confusion in the minds of students which eventually provoked them to stage a protest. The untraced practical award sheet continues to be a mystery, and how they furnished the marks certificates to the students is in chaos till now.
On 10 of July , I was learning my objectives at post operative ward in supersupeciality hospital , accompanied by two of my companions, both are female .we were collecting some history from the patient’s report card , suddenly a person appeared apparently an employee , He was a young adult ,he began asking questions to my two companions , while conversing for a short while ,he asked them to come to his office so that he can make them things understand ,and started asking for their phone numbers ,and when they denied ,he was obsessively asking them to register his phone number.He was looking at them with lust filled eyes .Even during my posting at GB Pant Hospital , when we used to have lunch at canteen ,the waiter boys, those who used to serve food resorted to “Eve teasing,” frisking destined at our female counterparts.
Recently I saw a doctor inadvertently patting and touching a nurse while talking to her , while he was giggling and splashing a naughty smile.
Over the years I have witnessed the pyschological trauma ,feels like I’m marred and chopped like any thing. They claim nursing as a noble profession ,but I object ! Because here in Kashmir it has been concocted with disgrace and humiliation .It tends to care ,but what it takes back is nothing else than disgrace.
In Kashmir a nurse exists nowhere in the medical circle , from admission to discharge she isn’t having any role to play .she has been restricted to administer medications .I am fatigued because I Keep standing all through the day , because I haven’t any assigned work .I am provided with huge syllabus but they are not utilising the same. We are often rebuked by higher officials while saying that they don’t need us.
The gender sensitisation of female folk involved in this profession have always been a victim of social stigma . There exists a pseudo_imagery of female nurses , when looked through the lens of society in Kashmir. The people exude that females nurses are having lucid character.They are devoid of moral and ethics. Many relationships die on the way because the parents don’t agree upon, because of their narrowed consciousness.
During the world war second, when the mega armoured persons, children, elders, were in a miserable status. These so called nurses endeavoured to serve the mankind with patience and with expertise, quite invariably they strived to serve and you left no chance to humiliate them.
In any hospital setting while every one seemingly appears strange, you hardly dare to express your grievances, only the nurse seems to be an option. have You ever analysed this? Certainly not, because your ingrains are preoccupied with false notations.
In kashmir while depression continues to be the prime concern invariably paralysing the masses with its dark appearance, with least options to resolve it. The nurses can do it.
Being primary care givers, awareness of social, cultural, political, occupational tendencies, they can induce a major jolt to this long impending horror.
So we as nurses strive to stop their tears, to energize them, to comfort them, to feel their self.
Sometimes we are alienated, suppressed in our own settings to make us feel that we are not important, but who cares, because we have pledged to uphold our promises we made, we are their to draw an intrinsic worth into the minds of people who search us.
We are provided with ability to care, ability to bear, ability to induce hope, ability to reduce miseries, irreparable potential to reduce pathology.
“Nursing is an art, only certain gracious people are provided with, and we are real artists, we craft the beautiful souls.”
“We as nurses strive to sooth people,to evade their tears,to stabilise them,to motivate them,to comfort them,to make them feel refreshed,to transform their energy into life and to make them feel that we are a party to their pain.”
Tawfeeq Irshad Mir is a political Columnist, persuing graduation in nursing at GMC Srinagar. He can be reached at tawfeeqirshad@gmail.com
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