Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Nursing officers of government hospitals and the hospitals associated with MGM Medical College struck work on Monday to press their 10-point demands. The nursing officers staged demonstration at MY Hospital’s entrance and the Government PC Sethi Hospital and shouted slogans against the government.
The agitating nursing officers claimed that over 10-15 surgeries were cancelled in MY Hospital while the routine immunization work was affected at government health centres.
However, MGM Medical College administration denied any services being hit in the hospital as they had deployed staff of private hospitals and students of nursing college.
President of the Nursing Officers’ Association, Ramesh Jat, said, “Over 1000 nursing officers of the district and thousands in the state struck work for pressing our demands. We had tried to raise our demands without affecting the work and also launched a phase-wise protest and even worked for many hours extra but government didn’t pay any heed to our demands.”
“No government officials or authorities contacted us for meeting our demands. We will continue our strike till our demands are met,” Jat said.
Nursing officers’ demands
Nursing officers’ 10-point demands include regularisation of contractual employees, implementation of old pension scheme, increment in grade pay of nursing officers, benefits of the Seventh Pay Commission to the employees of the medical education department, and night allowance to paramedical staff among others.
Private hospitals, NHM nurses deployed
According to MY Hospital administration, over 400 nurses from private hospitals and students of nursing colleges were deployed in the hospitals associated with MY Hospital. “No work was affected as the students and staff handled the cases. All routine and emergency surgeries were also performed,” Superintendent of MY Hospital Dr PS Thakur said. Similarly, chief medical and health officer Dr BS Saitya said that they have deployed the contractual staff and NHM staff to cater to the services in the hospitals.
30 surgeries performed in MY Hospital
According to Dr Thakur, all routine surgeries were performed at MY Hospital along with emergency services. “As many as 24 routine surgeries were performed in the hospital including four surgeries of orthopaedics, two of paediatrics, two of dental, and two surgeries of neurology were performed. Similarly, three paediatric and three surgeries were performed in MTH Hospital,” Dr Thakur said.
However, the nursing officers said that over 40 surgeries take place daily in the hospitals but only 30 were performed on Monday.
