LAHORE:
Nurses protesting for better pay have split over whether or not to continue their strike after talks with the government on Saturday, The Express Tribune has learnt.
Representatives of the nurses met with Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Parliamentary Health Secretary Dr Saeed Elahir, and Chief Minister’s Adviser Begum Zakia Shahnawaz at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat. A sub-committee was formed to look into the matter and it is to present a report in 30 days and the government side agreed to withdraw a police case against the nurses. Dr Elahi later announced that the issue had been resolved and the nurses would return to work from Sunday.
However, other nurses said that they would continue with their protest as they did not trust the government would follow through on its promises. A Mayo Hospital nurse told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity that the nurses had split into two groups, one led by nurses from Lahore and one by nurses from Multan.
“The Multan group is not willing to call off the strike and go back to work until their raises are notified,” she said. “They also have reservations about the nurses who met the government representatives.”
Nurses at public hospitals were on strike on Saturday and doctors filled in for them at intensive care units. “Our demands have not been met. We will continue our strike till a notification is issued. Not all nurses have agreed to calling off the strike,” said another nurse named Saima.
A Health Department official said that a notification to regularise nurses and give them salary protection had been issued on July 12, but the nurses had rejected it because it did not distinguish between those who had just started the job and those who had been working as nurses on contract for many years.
“The nurses also wanted raises on the salaries they were getting before being regularised. The demand was accepted and lists of nurses and their appointment dates were to be prepared by the hospitals through their field officers,” he said.
He said that there had been no progress on the matter for the last three months because the department was busy dealing with the dengue fever outbreak.
A grade 16 nurse gets a salary of Rs18,000 in Punjab, but they don’t get a Health Professional Allowance (HPA). A grade 17 doctor gets an HPA of Rs15,000 per month.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 27th, 2011.
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