Nurses want review of their working conditions

More than a week after the suicide of a nurse at the Asian Heart Institute, Bandra-Kurla Complex, that triggered a strike, nurses from private hospitals across Mumbai want the union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to set up a committee and reassess their working conditions.

More than a week after the suicide of a nurse at the Asian Heart Institute, Bandra-Kurla Complex, that triggered a strike, nurses from private hospitals across Mumbai want the union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to set up a committee and reassess their working conditions.

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On Sunday evening, more than 200 nurses from various private city hospitals finalised their demands with regard to salaries, better working conditions.

Next week, a delegation plans to meet Azad to discuss the demands.“We want the union health ministry to appoint a committee to look into the conditions of employment of nurses in private hospitals; failing which we plan to move to Supreme Court. We will petition for a court monitored committee for the same,” said Abraham Mathai, president, All India Nurses Association.

On October 19, more than 250 nurses from the Asian Heart Institute went on a flash strike following the suicide of a nurse, Beena Baby, 22, on the previous day. Nurses claimed that Baby committed suicide after hospital authorities harassed her because she misplaced a patient's ultrasound report. However, hospital authorities denied the allegations.

The nurses want salaries at par with government hospital nurses, and the bond system to be discontinued, in which their academic certificates are with the hospital authorities till the bond period is over.