PaRCha - JNU - DSF SFI-JNU - 2012 ID-57442
.
ward of Sharda Hospital, for instance, two nurses are assigned to 45 patients on an average. The hospital refuses to grant adequate leave to the nurses, even maternity leave. .
The hospital managements have responded to the strike action with callousness, punishment measures and intimidating tactics. At AIMS, 16 nurses have been served with termination notices. As the striking staff intensified their agitation, the management agreed to take back 11 of them, but has been adamant in refusing to take back five nurses who have been vocal participants in the struggle. False cases have been slapped on some of the striking nurses. At Central Hospital, 17 nurses have been served termination notices. The Nursing Superintendent was also suspended, for the crime of supporting the striking staff. In both the Faridabad hospitals, water and electricity were cut off in the hostel where the female nursing staff reside. At AIMS, nurses going to their hostel were threatened by bouncers. The management even resorted to abhorrent tactics such as sending bouncers late at night to the nurses hostel, on 8th May. On the night of 14th May, the nurses found that mobile phone jammers had been installed within their hostel, making it impossible to make any phone calls for several hours. The police was called in, but it was quite reluctantly that they removed the devices, clearly indicating their connivance with the management. The Sharda Hospital management has acted like a mafia, throwing out the nurses from their hostels with the help of bouncers. The AIMS management has also tried to divide the nurses by offering money to some nurses whom they identified as potential renegades, but the nurses have stayed united in the face of such tactics. All three hospitals have been using nursing students without adequate training or experience to keep up the pretense of normal functioning. This is not only illegal, being a violation of the Clinical Establishments Act, but also something that puts patients at grave risk. .
Disconcertingly, the governments of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have behaved with utter insensitivity to the issues concerned. The Deputy Labour Commissioner and the Labour Office failed to intervene initially, and in both the Faridabad hospitals, the managements, in connivance with the police, has forced nurses to sit on strike far away from the hospital, much beyond the stipulated distance of 100 metres. The local police has threatened and harassed the nurses, and even tried to intervene in favour of the bouncers it was only the determination of the striking nurses that forced the police to backtrack. In the course of negotiations, the Faridabad hospitals have agreed to increase the payment for extra duty, but they have been stubbornly refusing to concede to the core demand of higher salaries. Ironically, the AIMS management has already hiked various hospital charges in the name of impending higher salaries for nurses. For instance, the room rent for patients has been increased from Rs 1200 to Rs 2000 per day (an increase of 67%), while the price of a syringe has been increased by more than 200% from Rs 30 to Rs 95. Incidentally, back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that in AIMS, which earns crores of rupees every month by squeezing the patients dry, less than 10% of the hospitals revenue would be sufficient to pay Rs 15,000 each to the nurses in the hospital. On the other hand, at Artemis Hospital, Gurgaon, where nurses had gone on strike on 18th May after the management tried to force the resignation of those who were in the forefront in getting the nurses to organise, the management relented quickly and accepted the demands of the nurses, following which the strike was withdrawn. .
On the 15th of May, in order to build larger public pressure on the hospitals management as well as the district administration of Faridabad, the striking nurses of AIMS and QRG Central Hospital took out a big rally from BT Chowk and blocked the roads surrounding the Chowk for nearly two hours. The nurses are determinedly going ahead, and have decided to intensify the agitation until their demands are fully met .
An SFI team from JNU visited AIMS on Friday to express solidarity with the struggling nurses. The case of the nurses in India shows that the work conditions in the service sector businesses in India are as exploitative as in the industrial sector, if not worse; that the countrys much-talked about service sector growth is based on the brutal exploitation of skilled and semi-skilled workers is yet another dark side of the growth story so fondly trumpeted by the ruling establishment. SFI stands in full solidarity with the nurses struggle for fair wages, regular increments and reduction of workload to reasonable levels, and demands that the central government bring in .
a comprehensive legislation to set up a permanent mechanism/regulatory body to protect the rights of hospital staff. The regulatory body should monitor the functioning of the private hospitals to ensure that labour laws are complied with, and that the wages of hospital staff are be linked to the growth in revenues and profits of the hospitals. .
Do not remove till 25/05/2012 .
.
.
PaRCha - JNU - DSF SFI-JNU - 2012 ID-57442
.
ward of Sharda Hospital, for instance, two nurses are assigned to 45 patients on an average. The hospital refuses to grant adequate leave to the nurses, even maternity leave. .
The hospital managements have responded to the strike action with callousness, punishment measures and intimidating tactics. At AIMS, 16 nurses have been served with termination notices. As the striking staff intensified their agitation, the management agreed to take back 11 of them, but has been adamant in refusing to take back five nurses who have been vocal participants in the struggle. False cases have been slapped on some of the striking nurses. At Central Hospital, 17 nurses have been served termination notices. The Nursing Superintendent was also suspended, for the crime of supporting the striking staff. In both the Faridabad hospitals, water and electricity were cut off in the hostel where the female nursing staff reside. At AIMS, nurses going to their hostel were threatened by bouncers. The management even resorted to abhorrent tactics such as sending bouncers late at night to the nurses hostel, on 8th May. On the night of 14th May, the nurses found that mobile phone jammers had been installed within their hostel, making it impossible to make any phone calls for several hours. The police was called in, but it was quite reluctantly that they removed the devices, clearly indicating their connivance with the management. The Sharda Hospital management has acted like a mafia, throwing out the nurses from their hostels with the help of bouncers. The AIMS management has also tried to divide the nurses by offering money to some nurses whom they identified as potential renegades, but the nurses have stayed united in the face of such tactics. All three hospitals have been using nursing students without adequate training or experience to keep up the pretense of normal functioning. This is not only illegal, being a violation of the Clinical Establishments Act, but also something that puts patients at grave risk. .
Disconcertingly, the governments of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have behaved with utter insensitivity to the issues concerned. The Deputy Labour Commissioner and the Labour Office failed to intervene initially, and in both the Faridabad hospitals, the managements, in connivance with the police, has forced nurses to sit on strike far away from the hospital, much beyond the stipulated distance of 100 metres. The local police has threatened and harassed the nurses, and even tried to intervene in favour of the bouncers it was only the determination of the striking nurses that forced the police to backtrack. In the course of negotiations, the Faridabad hospitals have agreed to increase the payment for extra duty, but they have been stubbornly refusing to concede to the core demand of higher salaries. Ironically, the AIMS management has already hiked various hospital charges in the name of impending higher salaries for nurses. For instance, the room rent for patients has been increased from Rs 1200 to Rs 2000 per day (an increase of 67%), while the price of a syringe has been increased by more than 200% from Rs 30 to Rs 95. Incidentally, back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that in AIMS, which earns crores of rupees every month by squeezing the patients dry, less than 10% of the hospitals revenue would be sufficient to pay Rs 15,000 each to the nurses in the hospital. On the other hand, at Artemis Hospital, Gurgaon, where nurses had gone on strike on 18th May after the management tried to force the resignation of those who were in the forefront in getting the nurses to organise, the management relented quickly and accepted the demands of the nurses, following which the strike was withdrawn. .
On the 15th of May, in order to build larger public pressure on the hospitals management as well as the district administration of Faridabad, the striking nurses of AIMS and QRG Central Hospital took out a big rally from BT Chowk and blocked the roads surrounding the Chowk for nearly two hours. The nurses are determinedly going ahead, and have decided to intensify the agitation until their demands are fully met .
An SFI team from JNU visited AIMS on Friday to express solidarity with the struggling nurses. The case of the nurses in India shows that the work conditions in the service sector businesses in India are as exploitative as in the industrial sector, if not worse; that the countrys much-talked about service sector growth is based on the brutal exploitation of skilled and semi-skilled workers is yet another dark side of the growth story so fondly trumpeted by the ruling establishment. SFI stands in full solidarity with the nurses struggle for fair wages, regular increments and reduction of workload to reasonable levels, and demands that the central government bring in .
a comprehensive legislation to set up a permanent mechanism/regulatory body to protect the rights of hospital staff. The regulatory body should monitor the functioning of the private hospitals to ensure that labour laws are complied with, and that the wages of hospital staff are be linked to the growth in revenues and profits of the hospitals. .
Do not remove till 25/05/2012 .
.
.