NIMS contract nurses seek regularisation, pay hike

Hyderabad: The contract nurses in Nizams Institution of Medical Sciences (NIMS) have been protesting on hospital premises demanding job security and salaries on par with regular nurses of the hospital.

During the protest on Tuesday, the contract nurses said that they have been working for the last 12 years without any job security and were deprived of maternal benefits. The Regular NIMS Nurses Union (NNU) president Ashalatha, extending her support to the protest, said that the contract nurses were working for more than a decade and they were still being designated as contract nurses. These nurses are overburdened because of the heavy inflow of patients, she said.

Ashalatha demanded the State government to regularise the services of contract nurses who rendered best services even during the Covid pandemic risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

"During corona pandemic, even the doctors used to avoid coming into the ward and we used to be in the wards. My husband and my child were infected. When we do such service, we should get the recognition," demanded Sujatha, a contract nurse. Another nurse said that when prices of essential commodities, RTC fares, electricity fares were increasing, how could they survive with the old salary. She said that when the hospital is an autonomous one, they should get a salary of Rs 44,000, but they were not even paid half of the amount. Meanwhile, the regular staff nurses have come out in full support of contract nurses stating that the contract nurses have suffered a lot during the pandemic as they infected their family members. Some of them lost their family members, the government should consider their request, said a staff nurse.