According to DNF Secretary General Liladhar Ramchandani, since the symbolic strike did not yield any outcome, they will go on mass casual leave. (PTI/Representational)Members of the Delhi Nurses Federation (DNF) on Friday announced that they will go on mass casual leave on November 16 and go on an indefinite strike from November 30 as their symbolic three-day strike has not helped them get the desired results.
Services in Delhi government hospitals were briefly affected for the third consecutive day on Friday after hundreds of nurses held a strike from 9 am-11 am demanding regularisation of services and long-due promotions.
According to DNF Secretary General Liladhar Ramchandani, since the symbolic strike did not yield any outcome, they will go on mass casual leave. “Our members will go on mass casual leave on November 16 to press for our demands,” he said.
“Due to rising cases of dengue, we have decided to take any further course of action after three weeks from now. If our mass casual leave protest does not move authorities to look into our demands, we will go for an indefinite strike from November 30,” he added further.
The nurses federation held a “symbolic strike” from 9 am-11 am from November 2-4 which affected OPD services of several Delhi government hospitals. “However, emergency and ICU services were not affected as nominal staff worked to render these two services,” Ramchandani said.
These include LNJP Hospital, GB Pant Hospital, DDU Hospital, GTB Hospital, Dr BSA Hospital, Dr Hedgewar Hospital, SGM Hospital among others, he said.
At GB Pant and Dr BSA hospitals, many nurses sat together and raised slogans to pitch for their demands.
According to Ramchandani, there are 6,000 nurses for 8,000 sanctioned posts.
“Three new hospitals have come up and the staff from the other government hospitals has been diverted there. There has been an addition of beds, but no addition to nursing staff,” he said earlier.
The DNF had recently carried out a march to the Delhi Secretariat to press for their demands, including regularisation of services, promotions that are long due and creation of new posts.
“The Arvind Kejriwal government’s health secretary and health minister are not serious about the problems of nurses. That is why there will be a symbolic strike,” the DNF had tweeted on Tuesday. “We apologise for the inconvenience and difficulty that patients will have to face during the strike,” it said.