Jolt to patient care as contractual nurses strike work at AIIMS-Patna

The contractual nurses account for 45% of the total nursing staff’s strength at AIIMS-Patna, who was hired through an outsourcing agency four years ago.

The authorities at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Patna, have threatened to recommend cancellation of registration of around 700 agitating contractual nurses on Thursday morning, who have been demanding regularisation of their services, increasing their pay and perquisites and healthcare facilities on par with their colleagues on the rolls amid the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak in the state.

Contractual nurses were allowed to take eight days weekly offs in a month on condition that they did a minimum of five-day consecutive night shifts like the permanent nursing staff. (HT Photo)

The contractual nurses account for 45% of the total nursing staff’s strength at AIIMS-Patna, who was hired through an outsourcing agency four years ago.

The strike couldn’t have come at a worse time, as the premium healthcare facility in Bihar, along with the rest of the state, is grappling with the management of the Covid-19 crisis.

Earlier, the AIIMS management had given a written undertaking that they would not terminate any contractual staff.

They also committed to providing free Covid-19 treatment to the contractual employees and their dependents.

The management reassured the striking employees that contractual and outsourced employees were also eligible to the ₹50-lakh life insurance coverage under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, if any healthcare worker, who is at the forefront battling the pandemic, dies of Covid-19.

Contractual nurses were allowed to take eight days weekly offs in a month on condition that they did a minimum of five-day consecutive night shifts like the permanent nursing staff.

They were also promised experience certificate on AIIMS-Patna’s letterhead.

However, their regularisation demand, pay parity, and healthcare facilities, akin to the regular nursing staff, are still the sticking points.

Dr. CM Singh, medical superintendent, AIIMS-Patna, pleaded helplessness.

“It is beyond the purview of the local administration,” Dr. Singh said.

Later, Dr. PK Singh, director, AIIMS-Patna, issued a notice, directing the striking contractual nurses to resume duty immediately “in the interests of patients care”.

He also threatened to initiate action under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, that could tantamount to cancellation of registration with the Nursing Council of India, if they continued to play truant.

The agitating contractual employees are also demanding seniority and preference in filling up future vacancies at AIIMS-Patna.

They also want the institute’s health scheme (EHS) to be extended for them and their dependents on par with regular staff.

They appear to have raised the regularisation bogey amid the pandemic in keeping with the Centre’s policy of equal pay for equal work.

“We are trying to reach an amicable settlement with the striking employees and trying to convince them to get back to work at the earliest,” said Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, nodal officer for Covid-19 at AIIMS-Patna.

Around 350 Covid-19 patients are undergoing treatment at AIIMS-Patna, which has emerged as the most preferred health institution in Bihar for the viral outbreak treatment.

At present, the institution has dedicated around 450 beds for Covid-19 patients, including 80 beds in its intensive care unit (ICU).

A divisional commissioner; two district magistrates (DMs); a few Indian Police Service (IPS) officers; three civil surgeons among 40 doctors; politicians, including Member of Parliament (MP) and legislators; judges of the lower judiciary and kin of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar have either undergone or undergoing treatment at AIIMS-Patna.

On July 10, the Bihar government had designated AIIMS-Patna a dedicated Covid-19 hospital amid growing criticism of mismanagement about the viral outbreak.

The Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH), which is the state government’s dedicated Covid-19 hospital in Patna, had hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, exposing Bihar’s creaking healthcare infrastructure.

Earlier this week, NMCH drew flak after videos of bodies of contagion victims lying in a ward amid other patients went viral.

Besides, patients and attendants have alleged that doctors and nursing staff at NMCH were not attending to Covid-19 patients in person, and they have been left to their own devices.

The unfettered movement of patients’ attendants in NMCH’s isolation ward, which would not only expose them to the viral infection, but also make them potential carriers of SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease, has also come for sharp criticism.

NMCH principal Dr. Hiralal Mahto, however, refuted the allegations about doctors and nursing staff not attending to Covid-19 patients as “completely baseless”.

But, the fact of the matter is dignitaries and high-profile personalities of the state have chosen AIIMS-Patna over NMCH.

Now, AIIMS-Patna’s reputation is in clear and present danger of being sullied by the contractual nursing staff’s stir amid the raging controversy over mismanagement of the viral outbreak in Bihar.