Odisha government hospital nurses start 2-day agitiation over 10-point demands

Odisha health minister Mukesh Mahaling said the Odisha Nursing Employees’ Association has been called for a meeting on Wednesday

BHUBANESWAR: Nurses of state-run hospitals and healthcare centres in Odisha on Wednesday launched a two-day agitation to demand implementation of their 10-point list of demands including regularisation of contractual workers and scrapping of outsourcing.

The nurses had gone on a token strike in August to draw the government’s attention to their 10-point charter of demands (FILE PHOTO/Representative Image)

The nurses, agitating under the banner of Odisha Nursing Employees’ Association (ONEA), have also threatened to completely stay off hospital duties from September 27 if their demands are not met. Suchismita Dash, the ONEA president, said currently nurses at state-run hospitals except those posted at emergency services, intensive care units and operation theatres are participating in Wednesday’s agitation.

The nurses are demanding that the duration of their contractual service should be treated as a period of qualifying service for consideration of promotion, a modified assured career progression (MACP) and notional increments.

“Though the BJD (Biju Janata Dal) government abolished the contractual system, several nursing employees are not getting due financial benefits and many senior nurses are still getting salaries on par with juniors or even less. We demand promotion of eligible nursing officers to the post of senior nursing officers and assistant nursing superintendent by way of relaxation of residency period, recruitment against the post of community health officers under the National Health Mission, reverting the deployed regular nursing officers to their parent cadre and regularisation of left out contractual nursing officers,” said Dash.

The state government has asked heads of all healthcare facilities to take action against the nursing staff under the Odisha Emergency Services (Maintenance) Act, 1988 if they go for cease work.

Odisha’s nursing director Dr Artabandhu Nayak has asked directors of Bhubaneswar’s Capital Hospital, Cuttack’s Acharya Harihar Post Graduate Institute of Cancer (AHPGIC) and Rourkela Government Hospital, superintendents of medical colleges and hospitals and all CDMOs to act against nurses under ESMA.

Health minister Mukesh Mahaling said the nursing association has been called for a meeting on Wednesday.

“We have invited them to discuss their issues. The discussion will be successful and health services will not be affected,” he told reporters.