CUTTACK: Contractual nurses appointed by the Government in the three medical colleges and other tertiary health institutions of the State have decided to stage a dharna in front of the Assembly to press for removal of pay anomalies and abolition of all contractual appointments by the Government. The nurses have demanded a basic pay of Rs 9,300 at the time of appointment by ending all the differences in pay-scales among the personnel doing the same work in the same hospitals. Nurses, whose services had been regularised, were already provided with the Sixth Pay Commission pay-scale and were drawing salaries to the tune of over Rs 25,000. Those under contractual appointment were being paid measly sums of less than Rs 10,000 a month. Even among the contractual nurses, those appointed under NRHM are getting Rs 8,500 and those out of it given Rs 5,200. The vast differences in pay structure have created a gulf among the nursing personnel in the hospital and is affecting the morale of the workforce. “Nurses attending to the same patient and doing the same job are getting drastically different pay, which has led to a gross division among the ranks. There should be equal pay for equal work,” general secretary of the All Odisha Contractual Nurses association Jayanti Sahoo told mediapersons here. The nurses have demanded abolition of the contractual appointment system and regularisation of all nurses in view of large number of vacancies in the field. Though The Government had announced regularisation of services after six years of working, it is yet to implement the decision. More than 2,000 nurses in the tertiary institutions are thus suffering immensely and leading miserable lives due to such low pay, Sahoo said.
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