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Nurses’ agitation spreading through Kerala hospitals
After Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, it is now the turn of Kerala, the largest sourcing centre for nurses in the country, to witness agitations by nurses of private hospitals for decent payment, end to harassment by managements and better working conditions.
Over one thousand nurses of two of the largest private medical centres of Kerala are presently on agitation demanding minimum wages while thousands of nurses had struck work for several days in a minimum of five large hospitals in the past two months. The State Government is worried about the possibility of the agitations spreading into more hospitals soon.
Healthcare services at “five-star” Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi and MOSC Medical Mission Hospital in Kolenchery, Ernakulam remained hit respectively for the fourth and sixth days on Thursday due to the agitations by nurses. Over 600 nurses of the famous National Hospital in Kozhikode have threatened to start an indefinite strike from Monday.
The number of nurses agitating in Lakeshore Hospital is over 700 while more than 250 nurses are at strike in the Kolenchery hospital. The lakeshore management has so far refused to talks to the agitating nurses and has adopted a position that any settlement would come through the court, which has already ordered police security for the hospital.
The management of the Lakeshore Hospital, one of the largest and most expensive multi-specialty hospitals in Kerala, says that it has been paying the nurses on their employment rolls all required emoluments including above-minimum wages, bonus, festival allowances, etc but the nurses term it as a lie.
“The Management is lying. Why do you think more than 700 nurses, including nursing directors and superintendents, have joined this agitation if all of them are getting decent payment?” asked a male nurse who was still being paid a little over Rs 4,000 a month despite his more-than four years’ experience and BSc degree in nursing.
An activist of the United Nurses’ Association (UNA) pointed out that the Government had set the nurses’ minimum wages in 2009 as Rs 9,000 a month but not even five percent of the hundreds of private hospitals in the State were paying even half that amount. “It is exploitation, plain and simple,” she said.
The UNA, constituted just a couple of months ago in the State where no organization existed for private hospital nurses, has units in more than 430 hospitals now and nurses of more and more private medical centres are opting to join it. “That also shows how pathetic the working conditions and payment systems in our hospitals are,” said the UNA activist.
As per a study, over 21 percent of nurses the in private hospitals in Kerala are getting salaries of less than Rs 1,500 a month and less than one percent are paid at Government rates. Rigorous working conditions and sexual harassment in the form of comments and gestures from rich patients and by-standers are other complaints heard normally from woman nurses.
The study says that close to half of all the private hospital nurses in Kerala are made to work for up to 12 hours a day and the eight-hour-a-day work period is a luxury enjoyed by a tiny percentage. “Nurses would look at you in surprise if you ask them what kind of pay they get for overtime work. Such a concept does not exist in Kerala,” said a UNA office-bearer.
Lawmakers from Kerala had recently visited Delhi and Mumbai to study the under-payment, over-workload and other persecutions being meted out to Keralite nurses by hospital managements there. “But they have no time to see our plight. Politicians have not so far showed any mercy to us,” said Jeena John, a nurse in a Kochi hospital.
The agitations by nurses in Kerala got an indirect justification from the High Court on Thursday when it observed that nurses in the private sector in the State were being exploited. The selfishness-driven managements were exploiting the nurses on the pretext that they were in the essential services sector, the court said. They were being forced to work for lesser salaries and this was the main reason for the current problems in the sector, it said while considering a petition pertaining to the nurses’ stir at the MOSC Medical Mission Hospital at Kolenchery in Ernakulam district. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice PR Ramachandra Menon also observed that there were private hospitals in Kerala that had not revised the nurses’ salaries even once in the past ten years.
After Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, it is now the turn of Kerala, the largest sourcing centre for nurses in the country, to witness agitations by nurses of private hospitals for decent payment, end to harassment by managements and better working conditions.
Over one thousand nurses of two of the largest private medical centres of Kerala are presently on agitation demanding minimum wages while thousands of nurses had struck work for several days in a minimum of five large hospitals in the past two months. The State Government is worried about the possibility of the agitations spreading into more hospitals soon.
Healthcare services at “five-star” Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi and MOSC Medical Mission Hospital in Kolenchery, Ernakulam remained hit respectively for the fourth and sixth days on Thursday due to the agitations by nurses. Over 600 nurses of the famous National Hospital in Kozhikode have threatened to start an indefinite strike from Monday.
The number of nurses agitating in Lakeshore Hospital is over 700 while more than 250 nurses are at strike in the Kolenchery hospital. The lakeshore management has so far refused to talks to the agitating nurses and has adopted a position that any settlement would come through the court, which has already ordered police security for the hospital.
The management of the Lakeshore Hospital, one of the largest and most expensive multi-specialty hospitals in Kerala, says that it has been paying the nurses on their employment rolls all required emoluments including above-minimum wages, bonus, festival allowances, etc but the nurses term it as a lie.
“The Management is lying. Why do you think more than 700 nurses, including nursing directors and superintendents, have joined this agitation if all of them are getting decent payment?” asked a male nurse who was still being paid a little over Rs 4,000 a month despite his more-than four years’ experience and BSc degree in nursing.
An activist of the United Nurses’ Association (UNA) pointed out that the Government had set the nurses’ minimum wages in 2009 as Rs 9,000 a month but not even five percent of the hundreds of private hospitals in the State were paying even half that amount. “It is exploitation, plain and simple,” she said.
The UNA, constituted just a couple of months ago in the State where no organization existed for private hospital nurses, has units in more than 430 hospitals now and nurses of more and more private medical centres are opting to join it. “That also shows how pathetic the working conditions and payment systems in our hospitals are,” said the UNA activist.
As per a study, over 21 percent of nurses the in private hospitals in Kerala are getting salaries of less than Rs 1,500 a month and less than one percent are paid at Government rates. Rigorous working conditions and sexual harassment in the form of comments and gestures from rich patients and by-standers are other complaints heard normally from woman nurses.
The study says that close to half of all the private hospital nurses in Kerala are made to work for up to 12 hours a day and the eight-hour-a-day work period is a luxury enjoyed by a tiny percentage. “Nurses would look at you in surprise if you ask them what kind of pay they get for overtime work. Such a concept does not exist in Kerala,” said a UNA office-bearer.
Lawmakers from Kerala had recently visited Delhi and Mumbai to study the under-payment, over-workload and other persecutions being meted out to Keralite nurses by hospital managements there. “But they have no time to see our plight. Politicians have not so far showed any mercy to us,” said Jeena John, a nurse in a Kochi hospital.
The agitations by nurses in Kerala got an indirect justification from the High Court on Thursday when it observed that nurses in the private sector in the State were being exploited. The selfishness-driven managements were exploiting the nurses on the pretext that they were in the essential services sector, the court said. They were being forced to work for lesser salaries and this was the main reason for the current problems in the sector, it said while considering a petition pertaining to the nurses’ stir at the MOSC Medical Mission Hospital at Kolenchery in Ernakulam district. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice PR Ramachandra Menon also observed that there were private hospitals in Kerala that had not revised the nurses’ salaries even once in the past ten years.
