Maharashtra Government Nurses Federation on Tuesday ended their strike and agreed to resume work from Wednesday in state-run medical colleges.
As many as 23,000 nurses, including 1,800 from Sir JJ group of hospitals in Mumbai, went on an indefinite strike from Monday to get a charter of 26 demands accepted by the state government.
While Sir JJ group of hospitals managed patient care with the help of student nurses and resident doctors, the strike hit medical services across all district and rural hospitals in the state. The hospitals cancelled planned surgeries and concentrated only on emergency services.
Kamal Vaykoli, general secretary of the Maharashtra Government Nurses Federation, said: "We had a fruitful interaction with the state health ministry. The office showed a positive response to all demands. We will again meet them after three months for a review."
In the list, the nurses have demanded to improve the patient-nurse ratio, and fill vacant posts for class IV employees and clerical staff as nurses are playing multiple role, which is affecting patient care.
According to Indian Nursing Council's recommendations, the nurse-patient ratio in a hospital should be 1:3 in any general ward and 1:1 in an intensive care unit (ICU).
However, a nurse from state-run JJ hospital said, "There is a huge crunch of medical staff. In the ICU, instead of having one nurse for one patient, there are only three nurses for 12-15 patients admitted at any point of time."
The association has demanded a separate directorate of nursing education and services, improving the ratio of nurses and patient, insurance facility for nurses etc. The association has also demanded that transfer of nurses shouldn't not be done abruptly and with the nurse's permission.
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