The State government has informed the Kerala High Court that it has issued an order directing all private hospital managements to pay nurses full salary and not to reduce the number of nurses in their respective hospitals.

The government made the submission when a public interest litigation against the move of the private hospital managements to reduce salaries and cut down the strength of the nurses came up for hearing.

According to the petitioner, Prakash John of Thrissur, Union Ministry of Labour and Employment had directed all the Chief Secretaries to ensure that private sector employees were not terminated from service or their wages reduced in the name of lockdown.

The State Labour Department had also issued a similar order. Despite these orders, the private hospital managements were going ahead with the move to reduce the salary of nurses and in some cases terminate them, the petitioner alleged.