The United Nurses Association (UNA) will go to any extent to get the new wage structure, recently announced by the State government, implemented for private hospital staff, association national president M. Jasminsha has said.
Opening the Kozhikode district convention of the organisation here on Wednesday, he said the onus of ensuring the implementation of the new structure was on labour officers.
Mr. Jasminsha urged the government to see that roadblocks that had arisen in the past while implementing the revised pay package for nurses had not re-emerged.
He pointed out that the nurses of K.V.M. Hospital at Cherthala in Alappuzha district had been on strike for over 260 days, demanding the implementation of the pay structure announced in 2013.
Mainstream political parties were all mum on the issue of nurses’ pay.
Leaders of various caste and community organisations had united to deny nurses their rightful salary. They had also moved court to get the new wage structure blocked.
However, while dismissing their petition, the Kerala High Court had said that the managements were not ready to pay even the salary determined by the Supreme Court.
Herein an irony
It was ironical to see doctors, who gained from the high revenues generated by private hospitals, approach courts on the issue, he said.
UNA State vice-president Suneesh and Kozhikode district president Abeesh Khan were present.
