Nurses to hold rally Monday

CUTTACK: Nurses are again on the warpath over the delay by the Government in redeeming its promises of regularisation of the jobs of the contractual nurses engaged in the hospitals and instituting equal pay for equal work. As the Nurses Week is being observed across the hospitals in the State, the contractual nurses have announced that they would take out a rally in Bhubaneswar on Monday to press for their demands. They have threatened to go on a mass strike subsequently if there is no positive action. The members of the All Odisha Contractual Nurses Association on Sunday staged a demonstration at the SCB Medical College and Hospital and submitted a memorandum for the Health Minister. The nurses have been demanding regularisation of their services and  salary hike from the existing ` 5,200 to ` 9,300. The Government, following a day-long cease work by the nurses on March 27 this year, had assured them of action in 10 days.  “It has been around a month and a half but no announcement has been forthcoming from the Government. We had tried to meet the Chief Secretary on the matter but in vain,” secretary of the SCBMCH branch and State executive body member Malati Tripathy said. The nurses stated that it was a sorry situation where those with years of experience in the field were not being absorbed in regular positions despite the fact that thousands of posts were lying vacant in the Government hospitals in the State. This belied the claims of making quality healthcare services accessible to  all sections of the people. There are more than 2,000 contractual nurses working under the State Health Department and NRHM. While they performed the same work through the stipulated duty hours as their regular counterparts, they were paid very low pay. The pay band for the nurses should thus be raised from ` 5,200 to ` 9,300. While this has been implemented for all other positions from teachers to engineers, nurses who perform vital work are being deprived, Tripathy rued.