Resentment is brewing among the nurses of state health services on mass transfers of nurses from the associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC). The state health services transferred 25 nurses from the medical college hospital on Thursday.
On Friday, the Uttarakhand Nursing Services Association (UNSA) held an emergency meeting at the hospital and lodged a strong protest on the transfers.
The association shot off a letter to the state Director General (DG) of state health services and demanded immediate cancellation of the transfers.
The President of the association Krishna Rawat said that many nurses who are physically unfit and are more than 58 years old have also been transferred to the hospitals located in mountainous areas. “No policy was followed in these transfers. The medical college hospital is already short of nursing staff and transfer of 25 nurses would hit the patients hard,’’ she said.
Rawat further added that since the nurses are soft targets the state health services have only transferred them and not touched the pharmacists and ministerial staff of the hospital. She claimed that the transfers of nurses are done purely on whims and fancies of the senior officers and the association would start an agitation if the transfers are not revoked.
The association is now planning to meet the Chief Minister (CM) Trivendra Singh Rawat and register their protest.
There are more than 1200 nurses in the state health services; the associated hospital of the GDMC has 128 nurses though the hospital has 175 sanctioned posts of nurses.