- Reaction score
- 1,677
TOKYO - Japan's nurses on Wednesday (April 28) protested against a request by Olympic organisers for 500 of them to be deployed to the Games, saying that they are "not expendable pawns" to be diverted for a "non-essential" event.
Impassioned tweets poured in from irate medical workers as the hashtag "problematic to dispatch nurses for the Games" trended on Twitter. Many vented their anger over the plan that could deprive Japan of critical medical resources for its Covid-19 fight.
As another hashtag - "protect lives above the Olympics" - trended, they said their responsibility must be to their patients, and called on Japan to "get its priorities straight".
Aichi Medical Workers' Federation, the protest organiser, said: "We've reached our absolute limits. Give us more funding and please, please give us some time to rest and increase staffing."
It added: "We've got absolutely nobody to spare for Tokyo 2020."
A widely shared picture showed an unnamed nurse holding up a sign that said: "We are not expendable pawns."
Read more here. (Straits Times)
Impassioned tweets poured in from irate medical workers as the hashtag "problematic to dispatch nurses for the Games" trended on Twitter. Many vented their anger over the plan that could deprive Japan of critical medical resources for its Covid-19 fight.
As another hashtag - "protect lives above the Olympics" - trended, they said their responsibility must be to their patients, and called on Japan to "get its priorities straight".
Aichi Medical Workers' Federation, the protest organiser, said: "We've reached our absolute limits. Give us more funding and please, please give us some time to rest and increase staffing."
It added: "We've got absolutely nobody to spare for Tokyo 2020."
A widely shared picture showed an unnamed nurse holding up a sign that said: "We are not expendable pawns."
Read more here. (Straits Times)
