Nurses at Employees State Insurance Corporations’ (ESIC), Basidarapur, have announced that they will strike and ‘walk out of their wards’ between 11 a.m. and 1.p.m. on Monday and Tuesday protesting against what they are calling “the administration’s highly insensitive and unreasonable attitude towards the staff nurses.”
ESIC Hospital, Basaidarapur, is one of the biggest hospitals of the corporation and is under the direct control of the Ministry of Labour and Employment. “This is a 600-bed hospital providing total social security and treatment to insured persons and their dependents. This hospital receives referrals not only from all ESIC hospitals and dispensaries of Delhi/NCR but also from neighbouring States like Bhiwadi, Faridabad and U.P.,” noted Om Prakash Bairwa, joint secretary, ESIC-zone, Basidarapur.
The staff nurses here have noted that the administration of ESIC Hospital, Basaidarapur, has maintained a highly insensitive and unreasonable attitude towards the issues of about 300 nursing personnel.
“We have submitted several memorandums to the hospital administration relating to our problem which includes stepping up the salary of senior nursing personnel, pay fixation of promoted nursing staff, special/critical area allowance, inter-region transfer applications, and issuing on time LTC and tuition fee. Repeated written and verbal communications have been initiated but so far there has been no concrete result,” noted Mr. Bairwa.
Staff nurses have noted that they have been in discussion with the hospital administration for more than two months now. “Our problems are always discussed and we are assured that something will be done, however, till date no single issue was settled by the administration as they assured in the said meeting. All nursing personnel are working under tremendous stress and are frustrated because of the step-motherly treatment by the hospital administration,” noted a release issued by the ESIC nurses Association.
Accusing the ESIC administration of not being serious about the problems/issues of nursing personnel, the staff nurses have said that they are proceeding on strike “because the administration is forcing them into this situation.”
