By Lloyd Burr
Day three has dawned on a group of eight Indian nurses starving themselves in protest of New Zealand’s nursing certificate process.
The nurses, who trained in India, say the New Zealand Nursing Council cheated them out of jobs by no longer recognising their qualifications.
Camping in sleeping bags and ponchos underneath Wellington Railway Station’s Ghandi statue, the group say they are prepared to die for the cause.
“I’m really hungry, I’m really cold,” says Sanil Sahadevah. “But even if we don’t get a solution, we will proceed with this and we are ready to die here.”
Mr Sahadevah says when he arrived in New Zealand last year; his three-year nursing degree could be transferred and certified in New Zealand.
“All of a sudden, they changed their rules and turned them upside down and said we couldn’t work here because it would affect public safety,” he says.
The Nursing Council say they are aware of the hunger strike but will not change the regulations.
“Should we register someone who doesn’t meet the standard to work with the New Zealand public because they are threatening to starve?” says Nursing Council chief executive Carolyn Reid.
“The Nursing Council has made it really clear – don’t come to New Zealand expecting immediate registration because we are the ones who decide the standard.”
The protestors believed they could turn up to New Zealand and start practising because that is what other nurses from India had done.
However Ms Reid says it’s not as simple as that.
“They have come here with expectations that we cannot meet and may not be able to meet. They need to be more patient with the process.”
She says each of their concerns is different so the group cannot be treated as one and although an outcome is on the horizon, it will take time.
But time is something the starving nurses don’t have.
“I think we will die here before we get justice. We have wasted our time, energy and money in New Zealand,” protestor Abin Mathei says.
Watch the video for extended interviews with the protestors
3 News