Making best use of noble gestures from abroad

Samarjit Kambam *

Japan War Memorial Complex at Maibam Lokpa Ching :: April 2011

Japan, a conglomerate of small islands, also known as ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ is infamous for civility, courtesy and high level of discipline of its citizens. In lower primary classes, the tiny tots are taught on various aspects viz, basic courtesy, personal and public hygiene, sanitation, cleanliness, patience and tolerance before inculcating their Japanese alphabets like ‘A, B, C….’ of English inside their heads. The Japanese are also considered the cleanest people on earth in terms of personal hygiene.

It came as a surprise as well as highly unexpected but welcome development when the government of Japan requested for 1500 trained nurses from Manipur some months back. Since the II World War, Japan has developed an emotional attachment with Manipur as many of their forefathers who were soldiers died in Manipur while fighting with the Allied forces. Japan’s War Memorial Complexes are located in various parts of our state.

The India Peace Memorial War Cemetery at Maibam Lokpaching alongside Tiddim Road, Imphal War Cemetery, War Memorial at Kanglatongbi, INA Memorial at Moirang inaugurated by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Shangshak War Memorial at Shangshak Village, Khurai Thangjam Leikai Memorial, Porompat, Imphal are visited every year by various Japanese to offer their mark of respect to their deceased ancestors and relish events which took place related to them.

Besides, many delegates from Japan visit our state every year to further the bond through Indo-Japan Friendship Association. Japan has given grants on Sericulture projects of Manipur since many years back, only that the grants go to the pockets of stakeholders concerned. The government of Japan even requested for setting up a state of the art hospital in Manipur.

Ironically, the issue was straightaway rejected by the government of India, the reason for rejection may be to preserve the government of India’s dignity or for national security reasons – quite absurd. Hope this time, the request for nurses is accepted by the government of India as a goodwill measure and as a mark of respect towards the noble gesture made by Japanese government.

It’s not that Japan is not sort of nurses. Then, why the request for nurses from Manipur? Are, they looking for cheap labour? Not likely, as cheap labour are available aplenty in other South East Asian countries. Here, it is pertinent to mention that the trained nurses of Manipur have carved a niche in the nursing world in certain areas viz, compassion, honesty, courtesy, patience etc.

Many private nursing institutes are cropping up in Manipur that imparts training to the nurses in true missionary style with St. Teresa and Florence Nightingale as their diva or icons. Actually, missionary style nursing started decades back from south, particularly Kerala, but their trained nurses are in great demand in Gulf countries. Now, Manipur has become the nursing destination of many countries of the world.

Questions galore as to why the nurses of Manipur are a cut above the rest from their counterparts of other states? How come this quantum leap in the quality of nurses of our state? Course, it’s a matter of great pride for us that our sisters have won accolades for their compassion from foreign countries with Trinidad and Tobago, the Latin American countries as the latest addendum.

It may sound ironic, but, in Manipur, as per my observations, the nurses, as they complete their training and start to work with the doctors are given a high dosage of fear psychosis. Some of them even suffer from long term trauma. In our state, the doctors envelope themselves with a false pride and think of themselves as superior race of human.

“Noble Profession” (sic), which doctor possesses nobility? I know, the doctors, not all of them, but those of government run institutions/hospitals, after reading this piece may intend to form a “JAC Against Bringing Down Doctors’ Reputation” and crucify me.

But everybody knows and I am cent percent sure that I am not wrong to say that most doctors, especially senior ones are dictators to the nurses. They shout wildly, use vile languages and abusive remarks and treat the young nurses as non-entities, making them unable to even look straight at the eye to the doctors. They are to do whatever they are told, be it cleaning the doctor’s room or the likes even though it is beyond their charter of duties.

If a nurse utters a single word, she’d be termed as disobedient and arrogant. Thus a wave of forced loyalty of extreme degree is imposed upon them, and thanks to their dictatorship style, the terror based loyalty comes as a blessing in disguise, a part and parcel of the nurses making them soft-spoken, humble, patient and compassionate.

The Director of Health Services, Government of Manipur needs to put up a proposal of confirmation to the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Manipur on the issue. As the nurses, particularly working in private hospitals and clinics are given a pitiful amount of salary which do not even cover up their make-up cost and conveyance charges, the Chief Minister needs to consider the status quo on compassionate ground and send his consent of approval to Union Minister of External Affairs.

The nurses who voluntarily wish to go abroad may be given the rare opportunity where they can explore the outside world, a world of endless possibilities which will broaden their outlook and enable them to earn substantial amount of money as salary instead of languishing in private hospitals and clinics as the value of currency of Japan’s Yen and the Dollar of Latin American countries viz, Trinidad and Tobago are much higher in value than Indian currency.

Such developments will draw more attention of other countries of foreign soil and the fragrance of devotion, sincerity, honesty and compassion of nurses of Manipur will spread further. That way, the employment opportunity of nurses of our state will be rocketed sky-high and will set a positive trend in the nursing world provided the state and union government materialises it.

Wouldn’t we be proud if the demand for our nurses increases throughout the length and breadth of the world? Then the world will have an “Association of Manipuri Nurses” growing from strength to strength.

I sure hope we will be proud of our sisters ruling the roost in nursing throughout the world. If you don’t feel pride in such a development, then you are either a hard-core orthodox cum conservationist or a freak who despise the nursing world without having any respect for our compassionate sisters.