KARACHI, Aug 28: A token strike was observed by around 600 nurses working for the Civil Hospital Karachi on Thursday morning to pressurize the authorities for acceptance of their demands.

The strike was later called off following assurances by the hospital’s administration that the authorities would be requested by it to look into the problems faced by the nurses.

However, a spokesperson for the nurses told Dawn that if their demands were not met soon they would be forced to mount a campaign again. “Look, we don’t want to go on a strike. We never did,” said Nasreen Gil, the president of the Nurses Association of Civil Hospital, “But we had to, because the senior officials in the health department were not listening to us,” she added.

She said the nurses would be forced to take to the streets if the authorities did not look into their problems soon.

In response to a question, Ms Gil said the nurses had four main demands. “Firstly, the powers that have been taken from the Sindh’s director-general of nursing and distributed among an additional secretary and the director-general of health, be returned.

“Secondly, the student nurses who are given only Rs1,100 per month be given stipend according to the pay-scale in force in the Punjab. Thirdly, the nurses’ be given an allowance for the uniform, as per the rules,” she said.

“In addition, the decisions regarding our promotions — withheld since 1993 — be notified as soon as possible,” she demanded.

Ms Gil pointed out that a student nurse, who worked for twelve hours daily, took home only Rs600 after paying the mess charges each month.

“Can anyone support a family with that amount? But the student nurses are supposed to do just that,” she lamented.

Ms Gil, complaining about paucity of nurses to take care of more than 2,000 patients in the CHK said “We have only 250 staff nurses. As against this about two thousand doctors are working for the hospital. From this you can well imagine the problems we may be facing in taking care of the thousands of patients who visit the hospital daily or who are admitted to the wards.”

When contacted, the CHK’s medical superintendent, Prof Noshad A Shaikh, acknowledged that the total strength of the nurses in all grades stood at just 600. “And yes, we have less than 300 staff nurses.”

He said not long ago the official nurses-to-doctor ratio was one to four.”This means that the number of nurses should be four times the number of the doctors in a hospital.”

Prof Shaikh said the nurses-to-doctor ratio had recently been upped from four to six. “But we are not even near fulfilling the old requirement because the number of nurses is actually less than the total number of doctors.”

The medical superintendent pointed out that about forty positions in the nursing cadre remained vacant. “As soon as the authorities allow us, we will fill these vacancies in an effort to upgrade our standards of health care.”

Prof Shaikh was of the opinion that the living condition of the nurses was poor. “I have seen the hostel. They don’t have fans in many rooms and not enough tube lights.

“I have ordered for the installation of these as soon as possible,” he said adding that at times 15 nurses shared a small room.

Asked if he was in a position to resolve all the problems facing the nurses, Prof Shaikh said: “Of course not, but we have asked the nurses to form a couple of committees which will hold discussions with our administration as well as the officials in the health department.

“I expect that the health department will meet all the reasonable demands of the nurses.”