Mumbai: After the second day of talks with the state government failed to come to a mutually agreeable conclusion on Thursday, the Maharashtra State Nurses Association (MSNA) which went on a two-day strike from May 26 midnight, has decided to continue with their protest unless the state government withdraws its decision to outsource the recruitment of nurses on contract to fill vacant positions.
On Thursday, 15,000 nurses across Maharashtra participated on the first day of the two-day strike. In Mumbai, around 1400 nurses from JJ Hospital, St George Hospital, GT Hospital, and Bandra Public Health Care Centre struck work. The association is protesting against outsourcing the hiring of 1749 of the 4500 vacancies across the state to an external agency.
Sumitra Tote, secretary of MSNA said, “On May 27 too, we will gather at Azad Maidan and protest from 10 am to 5pm. We will decide on the indefinite strike on May 27 night.” Since Monday, the nurses have been boycotting work for an hour between 7.30 am to 8.30 am.
During the day, representatives of the 25,000-member MSNA met Virendra Singh, medical education commissioner of Maharashtra which was also attended by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER).
“One of the demands made by nurses was scrapping mandatory transfers, and having only request-based transfers. We have agreed to the same. We explained to them that outsourcing the recruitment of nurses on the contract was a temporary arrangement, and will be stopped once we get permanent candidates to fill vacant posts. The nurses said they’ll get back to us. We are hoping they will call off the strike and not cause inconvenience to patients,” said a DMER official.
However, MSNA said they won’t allow outsourcing even if it is temporary and it will continue to protest until the state government changes its mind.
“If we allow outsourcing now, the government will keep repeating it in the future. Also, we do not know how long the temporary period will last. The government should instead fill vacant posts,” said Tote.
State-run hospitals were not affected by the strike. Dr Pallavi Saple, dean of Sir JJ Group of Hospitals said 23 surgeries were performed on the first day of the nurses’ strike. “Normally, we see close to 65 surgeries a day. We had asked doctors to postpone elective surgeries and concentrate on emergency services,” she said.
Dr Saple added that the MSc nursing students were posted in the critical areas like intensive care units, emergency departments, and operation areas. “These students have prior experience of working as a nurse in some of the other hospitals. We, therefore, posted them in crucial areas. We also made round-the-clock posting of one resident doctor in every ward compulsory,” she said, adding that they will review the strike situation on May 27 and plan accordingly if the nurses decide to go on indefinite strike.