Mayor back in nurse uniform for pep talk to students

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, April 27

Pednekar, who worked as a nurse with the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust Hospital (JNPT) at Uran, near Mumbai, before entering politics full-time, said she donned the uniform to persuade nursing students who were apprehensive about contracting the virus.

“Nursing students and their parents were worried about the young girls falling sick because of the virus. I told them that this was an opportunity to learn how to handle a crisis,” Pednekar told reporters at the hospital.

The Mayor visited the civic-run BYL Nair Hospital and the attached Topiwala National Medical College from where the final-year nursing students have been roped in for deployment in Covid-19 wards.

According to the Mayor, she had worked as a nurse for 10 years. She borrowed the nurse’s uniform from staffers of the BYL Nair Hospital, according to civic sources.

Pednekar, 57, had gone into quarantine earlier this month having interacted with several journalists who later tested positive for corona. The Mayor, however, had subsequently tested negative for the virus.