HYDERABAD: The strike by outsourced nurses entered it’s third day at the Gandhi Hospital, which is the nodal health institution for treating Covid, on Sunday. A delegation of nurses met Health Minister Eatala Rajender on Sunday. After the meeting, the nurses said they would decide on the fate of the strike by Monday.
As the outsourced nurses continued their strike on the third day, the load on other nurses and healthcare staff increased tremendously as there are only 240 other nurses to take care of over 800-odd patients.
These nurses are also deployed in shifts owing to the quarantine rules. Earlier, two outsourced nurses had tested positive for Covid from Gandhi Hospital.
Their strike began on Friday, when 220-odd outsourced nurses staged a dharna outside the office complex of Director of Medical Education (DME) Dr K Ramesh Reddy at Koti, and submitted a representation to the DME demanding regularisation of work and increase in salaries. The nurses began the strike after the government recently recruited nurses on an outsourcing basis at Gandhi Hospital with a salary of `25,140 per month for staff nurses and `29,760 for head nurses. However, the outsourced (staff) nurses in the hospital, who have been working for the past 13 years have a take-home salary of just `15,000.
Meanwhile, helpless families took to Twitter to lodge their complaint on lack of nurses and timely care alleging doctors and nurses did not turn up to administer help.
Demand for pay hike
The strike began on July 10, when 220-odd outsourced nurses staged a dharna outside the office complex of the Director of Medical Education at Koti. The nurses are demanding regularisation of work and increase in salaries