WEB DESK
Delhi High Court today restrained protesting nurses of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from continuing their strike over their long-pending demands and asked them to resume work. The court also issued a notice to the nurses’ union on the plea of the hospital.
“Keeping in view of the submissions and assurances made by AIIMS that it would look into the grievances of the respondents (nurses), this union is restrained from continuing the strike,” Justice Navin Chawla said.
AIIMS, through its counsel VSR Krishna, told the court that these are services matters and discussions are held at regular intervals to look into grievances. The court issued a notice and posted the matter for further hearing on Jan 18, 2021.
As nearly 3,000 nurses went on the strike, AIIMS Delhi decided to outsource the nursing services on a contractual basis. The decision was taken in a meeting attended by the chairman, director, deputy director and senior faculty of the AIIMS administration.
“Our Union is ready for talks with the administration. We are feeling bad for patients but we’re helpless as our demands haven’t been met. We had given notice for strike a month ago but even then the administration didn’t listen to our demands,” Harish Kalja, the president of AIIMS Nurses Union said.
“There was no need for us to strike. We were busy serving the people. But the government retracted from the demands that were met earlier. None of our demands are new. All of our demands are important. But the demand of 6th Central Pay Commission is of priority,” he added.