The four nurses who recorded TikTok videos inside the special neonatal care unit (SNCU) of the district headquarters hospital at Malkangiri, Odisha have been told to go on leave, an official said.

Malkangiri District Magistrate Manish Agarwal ordered the four nurses to go on leave based on the recommendation of the Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO), Ajit Kumar Mohanty, the official said. A special committee has been constituted to investigate the matter and action will be taken following the probe report, the official added.

The four nurses - Ruby Ray, Tapasi Biswas, Swapna Bala and Nandini Ray - were showcaused by the CDMO on June 26 for extreme medical negligence and recording TikTok videos inside the SNCU of the district headquarters hospital. The CDMO issued the showcause after the TikTok videos of the nurses went viral in the social media. The nurses are seen singing, dancing and frolicking inside the SNCU in the video in their official uniforms.

TikTok is an app for creating and sharing short music videos. The four nurses in their reply said that they made video clips only after duty hours. They, however, admitted "mistake" of shooting the video in the official uniform, the official said. The SNCU was set up at the hospital for treatment of critically ill new born children as Malkangiri recorded high rate of infant mortality.