RIMS nurses
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, November 20 2012: Highlighting a number of grievances including the demand for recruitment of staff nurses to the required strength, nurses working in RIMS have been wearing black badges since November 19 .

The aggrieved nurses have also decided to launch indefinite cease work strike from November 24 .

Speaking to reporters at RIMS campus today, RIMS Nurses Association secretary H Tampha stated that staff nurses recruited in 2009, 2011 and 2012 should be entitled the same grade pay and pay band.

She demanded that the authority should recruit staff nurses to the required strength against regular posts.

The other demands of the association as highlighted by its secretary included vehicle shed for nurses inside RIMS campus and an office room for the association.

All these points/demands have been intimated in black and white to the RIMS Director repeatedly but to no avail.

In case no positive response is forthcoming till November 23, all the members of the association would launch cease work strike from the next day.

Whereas RIMS has 1000 beds, there are only 530 nurses.

Out of the 430 nurses, 115 are nursing sisters and 10 are nursing officers.

The remaining are staff nurses, Tampha said.

As per the guidelines of the Government of India, there should be one nurse for every three patients.

But patient-nurse ratio in RIMS at present is 45/46 patients to one nurse.

On account of this skewed ratio, nurses can serve patients to the satisfactory level.

At the same time, the nurses are being put to duty for long hours to the level of exhaustion.

A nurse on night duty usually works for 13 to 14 hours in a day.

To ensure proper nursing care to patients, it is crucial to increase the number of nursing staff, Tampha asserted.

In the meantime, nurses have lost many vehicles as they do not have a parking shed inside the hospital campus.

Saying that the RIMS Nurses Association, Lamphelpat is a registered body, Tampha appealed to the authority concerned to provide a room inside RIMS campus where the association can run its office.

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