Safdarjung hospital nursing staff start protest against outsourcing of nurses

By Joymala Bagchi
New Delhi [India], June 4 : The nursing staff of Safdarjung hospital have started a protest against the "outsourcing of nurses" by sporting black badges on their forearm from Friday onwards.
The nursing union of Safdarjung hospital, which is under Delhi Nurses Union and is affiliated to the All India Government Nurses Federation (AIGNF), has been raising their voices against the outsourcing of nurses. A total of 350 contractual nurses are serving at the hospital since 2015.
Prem Rose Suri, president of Delhi Nurses Union told ANI, "If the government does not listen to us, our protest will intensify and other government hospitals might join the protest. And if, the government still doesn't listen to us even after other hospitals joins us, we will hold a strike for two hours i.e. 9 am to 11 am. But we are hopeful that government will listen to us soon."
There are around 600 vacancies in the permanent category in the nursing post of Safdarjung hospital. However, there are 330 contractual nursing staff members hired by the hospital directly which gets renewed every three months.
The union demanded that these nursing staff should continue working till vacancies are filled for permanent posts. They also want the recruitment process to begin for these nurses on permanent posts.
"Ministry told to the hospital that their contract will not be renewed and instead asked to outsource all 600 vacancies. However, we are against this outsourcing and want these nursing staff to work till vacancies are filled in permanent recruitment. Hospital has already sent the file for permanent recruitment for filling up the vacant posts last year so ministry should begin the process as soon as possible ," Suri said.
"Moreover, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) assisted makeshift COVID facilities at Safdarjung requires 135 nurses, but the Ministry wants to outsource nurses for that too," said Suri.
Although the protest started, but work has not been hampered keeping in mind the crucial timing of pandemic that the country is passing through, says a nursing staff who participated in the protest.
There are approximately 2,500 nurses working at Safdarjung of whom 330 are on contract.