The health services of Uttarakhand would be thrown out of gear with the Government nurses of State deciding to take three-day mass casual leave from Monday. On the issue of increase in their grade pays the nurses of the state are on path of agitation since September 01. The State president of the Uttarakhand Nursing Services Association, Anjana Bhowmick said that the nurses were wearing black arm bands from September 01 as mark of protest but the Government is still showing no response on the justified demands of the nurses. The association has given notices to the hospital superintendents of Government hospitals about their agitation.
The Principal Medical Superintendent (PMS) of Doon hospital, Dr R S Aswal said that the hospital administration has made alternate arrangements like deployment of pharmacists, interns and trainee nurses to minimise the effect of mass leave of nurses.
The agitation of nurses would severely affect services in emergency, Intensive Care Units (ICU) and general nursing services. After the three day mass leave programme the association of nurses has planned to take out rallies to Vidhan Sabha, secretariat and health directorate on September 10 and 11. The nurses have threatened to go on an indefinite strike from September 14 if the State Government continues to ignore their demands.
The major demand of the nurses is increasing their grade pays. They want that the grade pay of Staff nurses should be increased to `4800 from the present `4600 and it should be hiked `5400 in next two years. The association demands that the grade pay of nurses working as deputy director should be increased to `7600 from present `6600.
Their other demands are setting up a separate Nursing directorate and increased chances of promotions to higher posts.
The association is of the view that like central government the B.Sc. and M.Sc qualified nurses should get additional salary increment. The nurses are also asking for implementation long pending issue of proper structure of their cadre and preparation of service manual.
The nursing services of the state are still governed by the service rules formulated at the time of unified Uttar Pradesh.