A group of 84 contractual nurses at HAC Hospital in Delhi have accused their employer of wrongly terminating them without notice and valid reasons. Recently, the hospital had been severely criticized by the nurses for poor management of the COIVD-19 Ward. The nurses believe that this was the reason they were fired.
Statements from the Nurses
The nurses claim that they had been in conflict with hospital management for 15 days, over the poor condition of the nurses and various medical violations committed by the hospital. They wrote a letter to the management on 23rd June raising these issues. Some of the points highlighted in the letter are:
No quarantine facility was provided to the nurses after working in the COVID ward for 7 days. This risked the nurses’ families getting infected.
The hospital provided them 3M pollution masks of inferior quality instead of the WHO approved N95 and PPE masks.
Lack of donning and doffing area to wear and discard protective suits.
Lack of drinking water. Water dispenser was provided after days of haggling.
The Alleged Termination
The nurses believe that because of their accusations, the hospital used their power to not extend their yearly contract. The order informing the nurses about the termination was sent on July 11 citing COVID-19 as the reason that the contract extensions could not be processed. The nurses on the other hand, received no notice before the termination. A one-month notice period is required for terminating a contractual nurse. The Nursing Superintendent (NS) has denied all allegations and said that they were only following protocol regarding the contracts.
Support pours in for the nurses
Indian Professional Nurses Association (IPNA) and United Nurses Association (UNA) have actively helped the nurses raise their demands. They have also written to Delhi CM, Arvind Kejriwal, to take cognisance of the matter. Further political pressure came from CPI leader and MP, Binnoy Visvam, who wrote a letter to the Delhi CM demanding that the nurses be reinstated immediately if the hospital is unable to justify their termination. Since then, at least 40 nurses have been issued fresh contracts but the rest of them believe that it was only because of outside pressure. A nurse who has been rehired told a reporter on the condition of anonymity that the management was taking arbitrary decisions. According to her, during the ordeal post 11 July, the administration had once said that they were facing a fund crunch and hiring new nurses would allow them to substantially decrease their salaries.
What next?
The protests still continue and the remaining nurses expect their contract to be extended or if they are being released, they be given three months’ salary and experience certificates. One of the nurses who was infected with COVID-19 has also approached the Delhi High Court regarding the termination and unsafe working conditions. The petitioner has urged the court to an issued direction related to the timely payment of salaries to the health care workers. The petitioner also sought a direction to ensure that Private Hospitals are not charging or deducting salaries from Health care workers if they get infected COVID-19 while they are on duty. The plea also sought direction related to adequate and standard nutritious meals, drinking water is provided to the health care workers working in the corona isolation wards and to expand the scope of personal accident cover provided under the 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package Health Workers Fighting COVID-19' to include all health care workers across sectors.