Nurses from rural Sindh and four public hospitals of the city, Jinnah, Civil, Services and Lyari hospitals boycotted work to lobby for salary allowances and time-scale promotions provided to them by the federal government but not by the Sindh government.
In Karachi, the nurses boycotted work from 9 am to 1 pm and protested in front of the press club. Their main demands were increase in health professional allowance, food and dress allowance, more powers for nursing school principals, time-scale promotions for nurses, increased stipend for nursing students and the high-risk allowance, according to Aijaz Ali Kaleri, the president of the Karachi chapter of Pakistan Nurses Association. Nurses suspended their services from 9 am to 1 pm except for the emergency departments.
Meanwhile in rural Sindh, the nursing staff in Larkana, Sukkur, Khairpur Mir, Benazirabad, Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad and Thatta, also boycotted work from 9 am to 9 pm.
According to Kaleri, most of the allowances are equal to or half of the running basic salary and will give a big boost to the nurses’ monthly cheques. Kaleri explained that the federal government gives a monthly health-professional allowance, equal to the running basic salary of the nurses. The nurses also want a high-risk allowance entitled to doctors, which is equal to 50 per cent of the running basic salary. In addition to these, they also demand hard-work allowance, also equal to half the running basic salary for those working in operation theatres, emergencies and intensive-care units.
Kaleri added that there was also disparity in the pay structures. In Punjab, the nurses get Rs10,000 per month as food and uniform allowance while those in Sindh hardly get Rs400 to Rs500. Similarly, the student nurses in Punjab get a stipend of Rs10,000 while those in Sindh get only Rs1,525. Another bone of contention is time-scale promotions. Many nurses have not been promoted for the last 20 years.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2012.
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