Govt hospital staffers join OPS agitation

Hospitals, meanwhile, have made alternative arrangements to avoid inconvenience to the patients, and patient services have not been impacted so far.

Government employees demand implementation of the old pension scheme, outside Mantralaya on Wednesday. (Express photo by Ganesh Shirsekar)

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Hundreds of government hospital staffers took part in the ongoing agitation called by government employees of classes 3 and 4 for the restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS) across Maharashtra.

Hospitals, meanwhile, have made alternative arrangements to avoid inconvenience to the patients, and patient services have not been impacted so far.

In Mumbai, the government-run JJ Hospital called for additional manpower from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), however, some of the non-emergency surgeries have been postponed. They conduct around hundreds of surgeries daily.

“Only nurses and technicians, and other class-floor employees are on strike, which did not have much impact on the OPD services. We have got some contractual workers for cleaning,” said Dr Pallavi Saple, dean of JJ Hospital, adding that contractual nurses have also been called for additional help.

At present, around 1,500 nurses and 1,200 government employees of Class 4 — including cleaning workers, security guards, and room maids — are on strike at JJ Hospital.

GT Hospital, which nearly conducts 10 surgeries daily, postponed a few as nurses and other supporting staff were not available amidst the strike. “All the emergency and admitted patients have been attended to. But, we had to cancel a few non-emergency surgeries and rescheduled them as the nurses were not available,” said a doctor from the hospital.

Doctors, meanwhile, are concerned that if the agitation continues, it might impact the services of the hospitals.

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