Mumbai: Close to 20,000 nurses in government-run hospitals across the state will go on an indefinite strike from Saturday following a stalemate in talks between the Maharashtra State Nurses Association and the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER). The association has been demanding that DMER withdraw its decision to outsource recruitment to 1700-odd vacant posts on contract, which the latter has so far rejected calling it a ‘temporary arrangement’.
In Mumbai, state-run hospitals such as JJ and GT hospitals are presently relying on nursing students, resident doctors have been positioned in every ward, and elective surgeries have been postponed.
“We request the nurses to end the strike and resume work and not let patient care suffer. We had a meeting with the nurses. They said they’ll get back to us with their decision,” said Dr Deelip Mhaisekar, director, DMER.
While the state government has accepted one of the nurses’ demands to scrap mandatory transfers and have only request-based transfers, outsourcing of nurses remains the major bone of contention.
DMER said the outsourcing is for a temporary period but nurses said they won’t allow outsourcing at any cost. The association is protesting against outsourcing the hiring of 1749 of the 4500 vacancies across the state.
“The government should instead fill the vacant posts instead of outsourcing. We will continue our strike till our demand is met,” said Manisha Shinde, president of MSNA.
She said a total of 20000 nurses will be participating in the indefinite strike across Maharashtra. In Mumbai, according to Shinde, 1400 nurses from JJ Hospital, St George Hospital, GT Hospital, and Bandra Public Health care centre will participate in the strike.
Since Monday, the nurses have been boycotting work for an hour between 7.30 am to 8.30 am. Later, the nurses went on a two-day long strike where they boycotted emergency services. Protesting nurses in Mumbai gathered at Azad Maidan between 10 am to 5pm on May 26-27.
On the second day of the strike, JJ Hospital in Mumbai Central saw 21 surgeries as student nurses and resident doctors stepped in to do the work of the nurses.
With the nurses deciding to go on an indefinite strike, Dr Pallavi Saple, dean of Sir JJ Group of Hospitals said they’ll continue to postpone elective surgeries and continue to focus on emergency services. “Our student nurses will have an 8-hour shift. We will continue to have one resident doctor posted in each ward 24×7. If the strike continues, on Monday we will take permission from our seniors to take help of nurses from Municipal Corporation hospitals who aren’t on strike,” she said. JJ Hospital has 1126 nurses and all are on strike.
St George Hospital-Fort said their patient care won’t get affected as there are only 16 patients.
“ We have 260 nurses out of which 250 nurses are on strike. However, due to less number of patients, we are able to manage,” said Dr Akash Khobragade, medical superintendent, St George Hospital.
Nurses from Cama and Albless Maternity Hospital haven’t joined the strike. “There is a technical problem because of which they and nurses from the government hospital in Aurangabad couldn’t give prior notice of going on a strike to the state government. They will join us later,” said Sumitra Tote, secretary, MSNA.
While Tote said all the nurses of the state-run hospitals are united, a section of nurses have not gone on strike including the ones working at GT Hospital-Crawford Market. “Most of our nurses belong to this union and they have reported to work. Our patient care has not been affected,” said a senior official from GT Hospital.