The faces of the 46 Indian nurses who arrived in Kochi on Saturday from the fire-spewing Iraqi war zones were all lit up with the smile of relief and joy but it was impossible for anyone to miss those clouds of anxiety about how they were going to face the future lurking underneath that smile.
Even while describing to mediapersons at the Kochi Airport the terror of war that was happening in front of them and horror of hopelessness they had fallen into at Tikrit hospital where they were stranded for 23 days and recounting with warmth the help they got from the ISIS insurgents under whose watch they were, most of them seemed unprepared to think or talk about the future.
The fear to think of future was loudly present in the whisper one overheard amidst the inevitable sobs of reunion between a nurse from Kannur and her mother. “Ellaam potte mole (Forget everything, my daughter). If God has created us, He should have kept in His store a life for us. That you are with me is the only thing I care for,” were approximately the words of that mother.
Santha, mother of nurse Salini, was more direct when she spoke with tears: “There is this loan of Rs 5 lakh we took for her studies. Then we borrowed from loan sharks Rs 2 lakh for sending her to Iraq. Notice for attachment of the house has already been received. But I am happy that I can see my daughter alive.” What Santha said is true to most of these 46 nurses.
“I am not sure when the bank people will come to attach the house and property. They have been troubling us for non-repayment of the education loan for a long time. The only thing that made them give us time was the fact that my daughter got a job in Iraq. Now this is what it has come to. But she is not to blame,” said the father of a nurse from Kottayam district.
All of them had gone to Iraq with the only dream of getting the boat of life to a safe coast. Thirty-one of them had reached the Tikrit Teaching Hospital 11 months back. Fifteen got employed there just four months ago. The senior ones are yet to get salaries for two months while the juniors had not got paid for the past four months.
“Also we were not getting the salaries we were originally offered. And when the change in Government happened in Iraq, the conditions of the employment contract were necessarily redrafted. We were then offered a salary that was much less than what the earlier contract had stipulated. But that has come to naught too,” said a nurse.
Ancy, one of the nurses, requested the Government to somehow intervene in the issue and help them get their salary arrears. “I was there for 11 months. There are our juniors. We had spent at least Rs 1.5 lakh each for visas and for paying agents. Also, most of us have taken educational loans,” she said.
The Kerala Government, whose main concern has been the nurses’ safe return, has not so far drawn up a concrete plan for rehabilitating them. Sources in the State Health Department said it might not be practically possible to employ all of them in Government hospitals in one go. “Still, there are efforts to examine the possibilities,” said a source.
Amidst this confusion, certain private hospitals have come forward promising to employ the returned nurses. However, nurses’ associations are not amused by this as they are alleging that the offer is based on the hospitals’ goal for publicity and most of them have the bad reputation of not providing the minimum required pay and facilities for nurses.