Odisha nursing officers protest, demand service benefits, promotions

BHUBANESWAR: Nursing officers under the banner of Odisha Nursing Employees’ Association (ONEA) on Friday staged protests at Lower PMG Square to press for their 10-point charter of demands.

The nurses sought treating the period of their contractual service as a period of qualifying service for consideration of promotion, sanction of modified assured career progression (MACP) and notional increments. They alleged that though the previous government had abolished the contractual system, several nursing employees are not getting due financial benefits and many senior nurses are still getting salaries on par with juniors or even less.

The association demanded promotion of eligible nursing officers to the post of senior nursing officer and assistant nursing superintendent by way of relaxation of residency period, recruitment against the post of community health officers under the NHM, reverting the deployed regular nursing officers to their parent cadre and regularisation of left out contractual nursing officers. State president of ONEA Suchismita Dash said the association has threatened to go for cease work agitation on August 27 if their demands are not met.

The protesting nurses said they joined the protest after their duty hour. The state government has invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) prohibiting strikes by class-III and class-IV employees in the health sector to ensure that medical services are not disrupted.