BHUBANESWAR: Nursing employees in the State have threatened to cease work from October-end if their 10 demands are not met by then. Even as the medical sector in the State has registered a phenomenal growth, they alleged that the condition of the nursing staff in most hospitals is pitiable. The Orissa Nursing Employees Association (ONEA) general secretary Srimati Sahoo said the members of the association would stage a mass dharna in Bhubaneswar in support of their demands before ceasing work by October-end. Sahoo said the association had decided to take the extreme step as the government is not paying any heed to their persistent demands for more than a decade now.The demands include regularisation of services of contractual and ad hoc staff nurses, recruitment of staff nurse from the panel on seniority basis as was the practice in the past and salary at par with the junior engineers. She said nursing should be declared an essential service and nurses should be given one and a half times of house rent compared to similar rank employees in other departments. Sources said in Orissa as many as 2,000 nurses in government medical service are on contractual basis with monthly pay of less than ` 5,000. The association has also demanded a stop to contractual and ad hoc appointments in future as it violated the prevailing service rules. “Besides regularising the existing contractual and ad hoc staff, the State Government must immediately put an end to contractual appointment in the Health Department,” Sahoo said. Creation of new posts, promotion, dress allowances, allotment of quarters, timely promotion, special allowances for posting in KBK and Maoist-affected districts and adequate round-the-clock security to the nurses on duty were the other demands of the association. The nurses on Wednesday staged a dharna here and met the authorities concerned over its demands. Without providing job security to the nurses, getting quality nursing care will be a distant dream,” the nurses stated.
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