Outsourced nurses working at Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad continued their protest for the second consecutive day on Saturday, demanding regularisation of their jobs as well as a salary hike. As part of the protest, all the 220 of these nurses boycotted their duties at the hospital and raised slogans.
Speaking to TNM, one of the nurses, Indira, said that they will continue the protest till their jobs are regularised by the government. In the last three months, the nurses said that they have sent representations four times to the Telangana health department in this regard. But they were neither assured of regularisation nor the salary hike.
“We haven’t received any reply from the government yet. It’s not that we want to boycott our duties and protest. We also love our profession, but we need to get our due credit for the hard work we put in,” she stated.
#Gandhi Outsourcing nurses continues for the second day. They said, would continue protest till they recieve reply from the government regarding their regularisation and salary hike. Even after a decade of services, they recieve only Rs.15k per month. pic.twitter.com/HhmxDXRXKA
— Rajeswari Parasa (@ParasaRajeswari) July 11, 2020
Another protesting nurse, Prameela, added, “Newly recruited nurses these days are getting Rs 25,000 a month. A nurse with an experience of five years at private hospitals is given the position of head nurse with a salary of Rs 29,000. What about us? With an experience of 10 to 13 years in the same hospital, we get Rs 15,000 a month.” This amount, she says, is not even enough for the rent. “How should we manage kids’ education and other expenses?” Prameela questioned.
Nurses in Telangana also mentioned that Andhra government is paying its nurses more than what Telangana is paying to the outsourced staff.
When enquired, an outsourced nurse working at a Vijayawada government hospital has shared that they have been getting Rs 22,500 per month, of which, after the tax and other deductions, they take home Rs 20,000. A newly recruited contract nurse on COVID-19 duty in Andhra Pradesh said, on the condition of anonymity, that she is getting a pay of Rs 34,000 per month.
Meanwhile, Andhra government is also planning to set up a corporation in which they will be including all the outsourced and contract employees and increase their salaries. Outsourced nurses in Andhra Pradesh have also pinned their hopes on the corporation process and said that their salaries would be hiked once this is done.