Pune:The Maharashtra State Government Employees Confederation (MSGEC) has called an indefinite strike starting Tuesday and 17 lakh employees, including 24,000 nurses of govt medical colleges and district as well as rural hospitals, are expected to join in order to raise long-pending issues.The confederation’s various demands include reinstatement of the old pensionscheme,recruitment to vacant nursing positions, promotion of tutors and retirement age being raised from 58 years to 60 years.Maharashtra State Nurses Association’s general secretary Sumitra Tote said, “We have demanded pay scale rectification, allowances as per central govt, recruitment and promotions.” The association’s Pune chapter president Pragya Gaikwad said, “Nurses will only attend to emergencyservices. Routine surgeries, out-patient department services and even non-emergency admissions will remain shut. Nursing college students and private nurses will be roped in to help with the current patient load, but it will not be sufficient to manage the usual patient turnout at Sassoon hospital.“The nurses association submitted a formal letter regarding the matter to the dean’s office and expressed apprehension that healthcare services could collapse because of the strike.Gaikwad said there are 42 medical colleges in the state and an equal number of govt hospitals. “At present, there are 50% vacancies of nurses pegged at 12,000 in govt hospitals and 12,000 in medical colleges.”Over the last one year, govt employees under the MSGEC tried several ways to raise their issues and grab the state’s attention. They held two hours of a walk-out protest, shut down primary and secondary govt schools, held indefinite chain hunger strikes and dharnas across Maharashtra. The state promised to look into the issues and meet the confederation’s representatives after the chain hunger strike on Dec 11. The current letter sent by the MSGEC to the CM’s office read: “However, till date, no one has met us. The employees who retired after March 1, 2024, are stillunclear about their pension benefits.” The strike is likely to hamper all govt services, particularly hospitals and schools.
