By IANS,
Dubai : The Indian embassy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has conveyed its concern to the authorities here over the termination of services of 160 Indian nurses at a private hospital in Abu Dhabi.
“We have sent a note to the foreign office here conveying our concerns over the incident in which the services of about 160 nurses from India were terminated,” India’s Ambassador to the UAE Talmiz Ahmad told IANS.
“We have also sought appointments with the UAE health minister and the secretary of health,” he said.
The 160 Indian nurses are among several hundred nurses whose services were terminated after a new management took over the Mafraq Hospital in the UAE capital.
According to reports, the nurses were made to sit for tests earlier this year with the information that the results of these tests would be used for evaluation of their skills and possible upgrade of their skills later on.
However, the same tests were used to terminate their services on the grounds that they had failed.
This, the ambassador said, was totally unacceptable as the nurses were recruited after they fulfilled the criteria set by the UAE health authorities.
“Even though they were working in a private hospital, they were recruited after the UAE health authorities found them to be qualified for their jobs,” he said.
“Our point is that the services of those people recruited by the health ministry (of UAE) cannot be terminated in such an arbitrary manner,” he added.
According to Ahmad, many of these nurses have been working from two to 20 years and at no point were their services found unsatisfactory by previous managements of the hospital.
Interestingly, it is learnt that the new management, which sacked these nurses, is recruiting fresh nurses again from India.
Meanwhwile, Colonel Rashid Al Khedr, director of the Legal Affairs Department of the General Directorate of Residency and Naturalisation at the Ministry of Interior, said the nurses who lost their jobs have the right to file complaints before the Abu Dhabi Court of First Instance.