Explained: Why are AIIMS nurses protesting despite the Covid-19 pandemic?

What are their other demands?

The nurses are also protesting against the reservation on the basis of gender at AIIMS that requires 80 per cent of the nursing staff to be female. Nurses say the quota is leaving many qualified men unemployed. 📣 Follow Express Explained on Telegram

Their other demands are related to the pension scheme, cadre restructuring, qualification pay and modifications in job description, among others.

The hospital has also decided to outsource nurses on a contractual basis, which has angered the nurses further. The nurses said that earlier candidates had to sit for an entrance test in order to get recruited. Recruiting nurses on a contractual basis, they say, will advesrely impact the superior quality of healthcare provided by AIIMS.

What has the AIIMS director appealed to the nurses?

In a video message to the nursing union on Monday, AIIMS director Dr Randeep Guleria made an appeal to all the nurses to not go on strike during the pandemic.

“The nurses union has put in 23 demands and almost all of the demands have been met by the AIIMS administration and by the government. There is one demand which they have insisted upon and this is basically a perceived anomaly in the fixation of the pay, as far as the 6th CPC is concerned. It, however, seems inappropriate that when the country is fighting a pandemic and we are fighting for our near and dear ones to save lives and we know that we need to work for few more months, and the vaccine may provide a solution, unfortunately, at this point of time the nurses union have gone on a strike,” said Dr Guleria.