Safdarjung Hospital nurses to hold protest from today
New Delhi: The Delhi Nurses Union of Safdarjung Hospital will start protesting, from June 4 onwards, against an on-going process to outsource the recruitment of nursing staff for a makeshift COVID-19 facility inside the campus, the All India Government Nurses Federation (AIGNF) has said. The AIGNF also said the the protest might spread to other government hospitals and institutions in the absence of a solution.
In a June 1 letter to the Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, the AIGNF said that nurses were forced to protest because neither Safdarjung nor the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) had replied to earlier requests (Jan 1 and May 6. 2021)about the issue. "For a long time MOHFW has been very callous towards nurses as well as their issues", the letter said.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has already issued a letter twice, in 2017 and 2015, that hospitals should not outsource nursing staff. "Yet, the outsourcing process started many times in the last 7 years and always from Safdarjung Hospital. It only stopped after agitation from AIGNF," the letter said.
The AIGNF said that the decision to outsource nurses' posts was taken to reduce the budget. However, as per a 2016 Supreme Court mandate, in case of more than 200 bedded hospitals, salary and other amenities given to private nurses should be at par with those of State Government Nurses.
The AIGNF further added that a higher risk of unreliable training, education and background-checks puts valuable medical equipment at risk. "Hospitals are equipped with machines which cost more than Rs 1 crore", "some Injections cost Rs 1.5 lakh per vial", and it takes "responsibility and accountability in handling poisonous drugs". "How can outsourced staff be given charge when they don't have any liability or responsibility?" the nurses' union asked.
To avoid "irresponsibility towards work and patient care", the AIGNF demands that vacant posts be filled up only on regular appointment while existing contractual nurses be allowed to continue or extend their term to give some relief to overburdened healthcare professionals.
