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| J&K draws a blank in Azad's list of awardees on Nursing Day | | | ABID SHAH
ET REPORT
NEW DELHI, May 12: Jammu and Kashmir has strangely drawn a blank in today's National Florence Nightingale Awards given to select nurses drawn from all over the country by Vice President Hamid Ansari at a function held at Vigyan Bhavan here to mark International Nurses Day.
None of the nurses from J&K or teachers in nursing profession from the State figured among two dozen awardees, the list for whom was drawn by Union Health Ministry headed by Ghulam Nabi Azad who hails from the Northern border State.
Unlike this nurses from home States of the two Ministers of State for Health got the awards from Vice President. These Ministers are Dinesh Trivedi from West Bengal and S Gandhiselvan from Tamil Nadu. From their States respectively Gauri Lama and M Vijayalakshami were honoured today.
Though Florence Nightingale awards are performance based and given for meritorious services to nurses, the absence of paramedics from J&K in today's list of awardees turns out to be strange since the State has for long been strife torn; and chances for medical staff to outshine others through their quick response are more because of frequent emergencies in the wake of violent showdowns and numerous accidents because of predominantly road based transport system in the State.
Far from this the medics from the State have been in the news for none too good reasons. Often they are hauled up for shuffling forensic samples or other kind of negligence, say in doing autopsies, in high stake cases: and invariably the complaint in the wake of such incidents by medicos and their supporting staff has been that they were made scapegoats and put to pay the price for only complying the orders from above, meaning the political higher ups.
This among other things has often led to or aggravated agitations leading to law and order situations that assume political nature.
And as indicated by the row kicked off during last Republic Day's Padma Awards where the awardees included a moneyed businessman from the Valley for his silent help in countering insurgency, the faith of the people in awards and honours given by whether State of Central Government has taken a blow.
Thus, the task is cut out before both the Governments. And it is to go by merit alone instead of either shunning the deserving, or pampering the charmed circle.
None can know this batter than a former Chief Minister like Azad. Today he announced his formidable plan to add more nursing colleges throughout the country, including Jammu and Kashmir. Yet more nurses may not necessarily mean better nursing care in Government run hospital unless State straightens out its priorities to motivate, inspire and reorient the staff that has otherwise been mostly indifferent not only inside hospitals but also elsewhere in the State.
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