Protests by outsourced nurses continued in Hyderabad's Gandhi Hospital for the sixth day. The protest started by the outsourcing nurses on July 10 is now being supported and continued by all class 4 workers of the hospital as well.
On Wednesday, all sanitation staff, security guards and patient care staff sat on the road and started eating from their lunch boxes, in a show of dissent.
The outsourced nurses are demanding regularization of their services as well as an increase in pay to Rs 34,000 from the current Rs15,000 in hand. Sanitation staff are demanding a hike of Rs 8000, from the Rs 10,000 they presently receive as salary.
Protesting staff are also demanding that the contractor be eliminated, so that they may be directly employed by the department.
With rain playing spoilsport, protesting workers shifted to the auditorium and said that they would continue their protest once the weather is clear.
Sanitation staff began their strike on Tuesday in support of the outsourced nurses. Speaking to TNM, one of the sanitation staff on protest, said that they would continue till they get a salary hike.
Protesting staff have also said that they are in talks with authorities and are yet to hear the result of the discussion at the time of filing this report.
On the other hand, with scores of nurses, sanitation staff, and security guards on strike, patient services at Gandhi Hospital have been affected.
Several patients have complained of lack of hygiene, delay in body disposals. Videos of the same have surfaced on social media as well.
A patient has also recorded a video and appealed to the government to settle the salary issue of the workers so that the patients can get better services in the hospital as soon as possible.