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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : January 17, 2013 8:15 AM IST
On its seventh day, the indefinite strike by 450 contract nurses attached to Bangalore Medical College & Research Institute Stipendiary Staff Nurses' Welfare Association was stepped up. As S A Ramdas, medical education minister, and other top department officials turned a blind eye on the protesters and did not convey the government's stand, the nurses on Wednesday decided to intensify their strike.
As the striking nurses tried to barricade the Bangalore Medical College for 40 minutes demanding regularisation of their services, police took them into custody and were released after 6pm. Services were disrupted in the four government hospitals coming under BMCRI Bowring, Victoria, Vani Vilas, and Minto Eye Hospital where the stipendiary nurses had been working for the past five to six years on a monthly stipend of Rs 7,000. BMCRI has been demanding regularisation of their services for the last few years.
Kumarswamy, vice-president of the association said that though the police took down their names and contact details and allowed them to go, they we are not going to withdraw their strike until their demands were considered.
The medical education minister and bureaucrats remained indifferent with neither of them opening channels of communication with the protesters. Ruling out meeting the association's demands, Prabhakar KS, principal secretary, medical education department said, The Supreme Court judgment in Umadevi v/s state of Karnataka case is very clear. We cannot make jobs of contract employees permanent. Only the cabinet has the power. We haven't proposed any action against the protesters at this stage. But if they create obstructions in functioning of the hospital and medical college, we will definitely take action against them.
