An immediate surge of disease outbreak and an increase in number of birth leaves the Health Ministry with no choice but to allow its staff to work overtime.

Health Minister Doctor Neil Sharma made the comments when asked about the number of hours nurses are working and not given days off for working the whole seven days.

Staff in the obstetric unit it is beyond our control, increase in births meaning more midwives is needed to serve the patients.

However Sharma says the 12 hour shift has been beneficial to the nurses.

We are looking at large centres that have been beneficial at this point in time with more than 2,000 nurses being employed by the government.

The Ministry plans to employ an additional 300 nurses by the end of this year.

However – rationalising the position of the nurses entirely depends on the management.