The management of Apollo Hospitals reached an agreement with the striking nurses on Thursday evening, bringing to close the week-long agitation by nurses from various private hospitals in the city.
“The impasse has been resolved,” said V. Satyanarayana Reddy, Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Hospitals, in a brief statement. Monthly emoluments for nurses had been fixed at Rs.12,000. They will get “a speciality/JCI weightage in addition,” he said. He expressed confidence that the nurses would return to work for the first shift on Friday morning.
Thursday began with nurses in Apollo Specialty Hospital, Teynampet, and Apollo First Med Hospital, Poonamallee High Road, joining the strike. According to them, even as they kept out of the hospital, representatives of the Apollo Welfare Association for Registered Nurse held discussions with the management.
The stalemate continued throughout the day and hundreds of nurses, most of them in their twenties, marched from Rajaratnam Stadium in Egmore to Langs Garden Road, carrying placards and raising slogans.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Reddy had issued a statement terming the strike illegal and requesting the nurses to “please allow us to provide high standards of patient care.”
He clarified that he had already placed his offer with the unions, and that it was the best in industry package effective April 2012. He further said that the hospital outcomes depend on “coordinated effort of the entire hospital team and not only the nursing community.”
He noted that “the number of occupied beds had been slightly scaled down” as it was the hospital's policy never to compromise on patient safety and care.
Also, student/trainee nurses provided bedside support and not clinical care to patients who had come from various locations in the country and did not want to go elsewhere.
Even as the nurses' demonstration on Langs Garden Road concluded and their representatives held discussions with the hospital's management, the Greams Road Apollo Hospitals was a picture of quiet on Thursday night. A family from Oman waiting outside the hospital said they had admitted a patient on Wednesday.
