Strike cripples Sion hospital, 125 surgeries cancelled

Sion Hospital was forced to cancel 125 operations on Tuesday after 2,500 class IV workers went on a strike in protest against the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) decision to hand over the cleanliness contract to a private firm.

The BMC had decided to privatise cleanliness services, as Sion Hospital is considered to be one of the most unclean civic hospitals. There had been a rising number of complaints against the shoddy work of sweepers.

“We have got many complaints regarding sweepers not working properly, reporting late at work and few have even reported drunk at work. Every day, the hospital gets more than 3,000 patients, and it is a major civic hospital. Cleanliness has been a major concern in this hospital. We had therefore decided to have a private agency hire sweepers at Sion Hospital as a pilot project,” said a senior official from the civic body’s health department.

The protest began at 7.30am and was called off at 11am after mayor Shraddha Jadhav visited the hospital and assured that there will be no privatisation.

“The strike lasted for over three hours but did enough damage for the day. All the scheduled operations were cancelled, as we were not sure when the strike would get over. Many of them were urgent surgeries, but we had no option but to cancel. It was imperative to conduct the operations in the morning and not in any other slot as the patients are required to fast before the surgery,” said a senior doctor from the hospital.

“We will have to work extra time to finish off the workload. The sweepers had been a nuisance when it comes to work and cleanliness. Many a times, we have had to do their work in emergency scenarios,” he added.

According to the BMC’s plan, it was supposed to hire 500 sweepers from a private agency and transfer the existing sweepers in Sion Hospital to KEM Hospital and Nair Hospital.
The Kamgar Union, however, refused to buy the BMC’s idea of pivatisation.

“We are against privatisation. The BMC should instead recruit full-time sweepers. We had earlier spoken about it with the authorities about recruiting the children of ex-sweepers working at civic hospitals,” said Suresh Salvi, deputy secretary, Kamgar Union, Sion Hospital.

Meanwhile, the BMC’s standing committee chairman Rahul Shewale said, “Our priority is cleanliness in hospitals. If the existing staff cannot cooperate, we will be forced to have a private agency employ sweepers.”

He added: “Presently, there are 515 sweepers. But every day, over 100 of them remain absent. The toilets and premises are in a bad state.”

He threatened that the civic body would make union leaders do the sweeping at civic hospitals if the sweepers continued to do a shoddy job. If the union did not cooperate, he said the BMC would be forced to have its own way.

“We are ready to meet all hygiene-related demands of the sweepers in return,” Shewale said.