At least 25 nurses were injured, including eight sustaining burns, as police dispersed nurses who had blocked Shahbagh intersection in the capital on Wednesday demanding withdrawal of the government’s decision to recruit nurses through fresh examinations under Bangladesh Public Service Commission.
Police charged batons, fired teargas and sound grenades and used water cannons to disperse several hundred nurses, who blocked the Shahbagh intersection for around three and half hours, witnesses said.
Police also arrested eight nurses from the spot.
The Public Service Commission on Monday published an advertisement for hiring 3,616 senior staff nurses under the health and family welfare ministry.
The protesting nurses wanted the advertisement to be cancelled and demanded recruitment in phases as per academic seniority, said Basic Graduate Students Nurses Association general secretary Nahida Akter.
Shahbagh police station officer-in-charge Abu Bakr Siddique said several hundred nurses blocked the busy intersection about 10:00am and halted traffic through the intersection.
Police dispersed them as they did not responded to police calling them to stop their agitation which was causing sufferings to people, he said.
Around 300 nurses of Bangladesh Diploma Unemployed Nurses’ Association took position on the street. Later, several hundred members of Bangladesh Basic Graduate Students Nurses Association joined them, witnesses said.
Basic Graduate Students Nurses Association general secretary Nahida Akter said nurses used to be recruited based on their academic batches from 2006 till 2013.
Terming the previous recruitment system a fair one, she said the academically senior nurses would get promotions and the juniors would be recruited in phases.
The PSC decision of fresh examination would deprive the unemployed nurses who had not even applied for job as they believed their recruitment would be on the basis of academic sonority, Nahida said.
As the protest triggered long tailbacks on all roads around the busy intersection, police dispersed them around 1:30pm, using batons, teargas, sound grenades and water cannons, witnesses said.
Ramna police division deputy commissioner Abdul Baten told reporters that the nurses halted the traffic around the important intersection for about three hours and a half.
‘There are two hospitals here. To save patients and general people from the sufferings, we repeatedly requested them to move away but they didn’t,’ he said.
Baten said eight demonstrators were arrested from the spot and a case would be filed soon.
Dhaka Medical College Hospital sources said at least 25 injured nurses were admitted to the hospital.
Among the injured, eight were admitted to the hospital’s burn unit, said the burnt unit residential surgeon Partha Shangkar Paul.
Source: New Age
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