Healthcare Services Severely Disrupted across Odisha due to Cease-Work Protest by Nurses

Bhubaneswar: The healthcare services have been severely disrupted across Odisha due to the cease-work protests by the nurses of state-run hospitals and healthcare centres in the state.

The nursing officers are on the strike since Friday to demand implementation of their 10-point list of demands including regularisation of contractual workers and scrapping of outsourcing.

The protest has adversely affected the healthcare services at the government-run hospitals, such as Capital Hospital, Bhubaneswar, SCB Medical College and Hospital, Cuttack and MKCG Medical College and Hospital, Berhampur.

Patients and their families are suffering a lot because of the cease-work agitation called by the Odisha Nursing Employees’ Association (ONEA).

The agitation has led to a halt in non-emergency medical services in state-run hospitals and healthcare centers.

The nurses are demanding that the duration of their contractual service should be treated as a period of qualifying service for consideration of promotion, a modified assured career progression (MACP) and notional increments.

Nearly 15,000 nurses from state-run medical colleges, district headquarters hospitals, and other hospitals are staging protests.

The absence of nurses from duty adversely affects those in need of medical care.