India : Nurses join trade union strike
of nurses who joined the protest at the district hospital was 16, at the ESIC Hospital it was nearly 200.
The nurses at the district hospital have gone on an indefinite strike even as it is flooded with patients. Contractual nurses had to be roped in to address the shortage of manpower. In ESIC Hospital at Sector 24, operations could not be conducted with nearly 200 nurses going on a strike. The OPD and ward services were staffed by the contractual nurses here as well as nurses continued to protest outside the hospital.
Hospital director Dr Neelima said that no operations could be conducted due to the strike even as nearly 1,900 patients came at the OPD on Friday. Raji Devanand, secretary of the ESIC Nurses Association said that the strike would continue till their demands were agreed to.
In ESIC Hospital, the services were not affected as badly as in district hospital. Mira Jaiswal, head of the Nurses Association said that they are protesting against the Seventh Pay Commission. Chief medical superintendent N M Mathur said that all the services are being delivered without any hindrance.
Meanwhile, the strike call by the workers of UP Roadways had only a partial impact in Noida. The buses conducted operations from the Noida depot, Sector 35.
However, there were fewer buses coming to the Noida depot from other cities due to which people were seen waiting for buses at the depot. Buses packed to full could be seen leaving the depot. The buses going towards Meerut, Bulandshahr, Agra and Aligarh were affected the most.
Tanya Verma, who had to attend a function in Meerut said that she had to wait for the bus for nearly 50 minutes.