KARACHI: Nurses from various hospitals in the city and elsewhere in Sindh on Monday stopped working in medical facilities across the province, paralysing work in many health facilities and causing delays in surgeries.

Hundreds of nurses, meanwhile, staged a sit-in outside the Karachi Press Club to press for the acceptance of their demands, which they said had long been ignored by the government.

Sindh Health Minister Azra Pechuho, meanwhile, said the government would accept some of the “legitimate” demands of the protesting nurses.

The protest was organised by the Joint Nurses Action Committee (JNAC), which said they had stopped working in hospitals of Sindh except for emergencies and ICUs and their protest would continue till their long-standing demands were met.

Minister says some of the protesters’ demands will be accepted

The JNAC is a conglomerate of the Young Nurses Association, Pakistan Nurses Association and Private School Nursing Association.

The minister said at a press conference that certain demands of the nurses would be accepted. “We cannot accept all their demands, but some of them, which are genuine and justifiable,” she said. The boycott gravely affected the public hospitals in Karachi and other parts of Sindh.

Certain operations were delayed in many hospitals. However, officials at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) said they had managed to conduct all scheduled surgeries for the day, yet it would be hard to cope with the situation in the future.

“It will be difficult to provide better healthcare to patients without nursing staff if this boycott persists,” said Dr Seemin Jamali, executive director of the JPMC.

Other hospitals reported a similar situation where nurses were present in emergencies and ICUs but had stayed away from the rest of the facilities.

The protesters kept chanting slogans against the relevant authorities and held banners and placards inscribed with their demands.

The JNAC said around 1,000 nurses from the rest of Sindh joined the protest in Karachi while many others had chosen to stay away from their jobs.

Representatives of the protesters met the deputy commissioner of Karachi South and an additional secretary of health ministry. However, as they claimed, initial negotiations did not succeed.

Firdous Naqvi visits camp

Firdous Naqvi, Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly, also visited the protesting nurses’ camp. He criticised the Sindh government for ignoring their demands, which he called legitimate, adding that his party [the PTI] would raise its voice in the assembly on the issue.

The JNAC representatives spelled out their 10 demands, which they asked the government to accept and implement immediately.

Their demands are: Approval of a five-tier formula for nurses; release of health professional allowance; implementation of the decision of the Pakistan Nurses Council and the Sindh ombudsman regarding holding a special examination to save the future of 400 nursing students; raise in the stipend of nursing students up to Rs20,000 per month, equal to Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; permission of DDO powers to nursing schools; establishment of a nursing university; appointment of 14,000 new nurses by creating new posts; appointment of additional secretary technical in the health department from the nursing cadre; following the announcement of the Sindh Public Service Commission regarding positions of controller and deputy controller; and cancellation of selection during election of the Pakistan Nursing Council from Sindh.

They said they had presented the demands to the health ministry but they had been constantly ignored.

They said unlike Sindh, the provincial governments in the other three provinces were upgrading nursing profession and offering them incentives.

“But the Sindh health ministry has not taken any practical step to address our issues so far,” said a protester.

Nurses said there was no mechanism to promote nurses in Sindh as most of them appointed in grade-16 retired in the same grade.

They said after a protest in 2017, the Sindh health ministry had formed a committee, but its recommendations too were not entertained.

“We had written about our problems to the Sindh CM and we had received a positive response from him. But the health ministry did not follow the CM’s clear instructions in which he had asked them to solve our issues,” said a JNAC leader.

The sit-in was continuing till late Monday evening. The protesters said it would continue till their demands were met.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2018

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