Safdarjung Hospital nursing staff to protest against decision to hire nurses through outsourcing agency

The nursing staff at the Central government-run Safdarjung Hospital will begin a protest against the Union government’s decision to appoint outsourced nursing staff at the hospital from June 4. The staff will sport black badges and a day after, the nurses would hold a dharna for an hour within the hospital premises.

This comes after several assurances that outsourced staff will not be appointed to the hospital. The staff is hoping that the government will initiate a conversation with their union.

The staff found out about the recruitment when the outsourcing company, Sai Communications, put out an advertisement for nurses. The deadline for applying through the company is June 7, 2021.

The salary offered by the company is Rs 42,000 approximately and the it has called for staff below the age of 35 and with minimum one year experience. The starting salary for a Central government staff is Rs 65,000, which is increased to Rs 71,000 per month.

Surprised by the development, the Delhi Nurses Union president Prem Rose Suri wrote a letter to the medical superintendent of the hospital stating that the hospital administration and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had been callous towards the nurses as well as their issues. She added that the hospital administration had done nothing to stop the recruitment of outsourced nurses.

The waiting list for the 2019 nursing applicants of the combined examination conducted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences is still valid. The ministry can recruit these candidates instead.

“I understand we are in a pandemic and in the makeshift hospital within Safdarjung, there is an immediate need for nurses. We had suggested that we would be willing to hire contract staff. At least then we will know the qualification of the nurses who will apply. We will check their certificates to see if they are authentic. With an outsourced agency, nothing can be sure. These contract nurses will be on hospital payroll and there can be accountability issues as we nurses are responsible for the lives of patients. Outsourced staff will not be responsible to either the patients or the hospital,” said Rose Suri.

She added that with an outsourced agency, it wasn’t clear who would take responsibility in case of mismanagement. “With an outsourced agency, the applicants may have to pay a fee. We don’t charge any fee. Being under the hospital management is better for the nursing staff too,” she added.

Safdarjung Hospital had directly recruited contract staff, in addition to regular staff, in 2017 and 2018. A nursing staff with one-year experience would be paid Rs 36,000, which has not been increased until now. “Even though they are contract staff, they get all other benefits that the staff gets. The staff recruited through an outsourcing agency is being paid more. This is a loss to the exchequer. With the outsourced staff, no proper verification is done. We will never know if any of them have criminal antecedents and it can be a threat to the female staff. It is better to recruit directly,” said a senior staffer in the hospital, who did not want to be identified.

Recently, an outsourced health worker at Safdarjung Hospital had stabbed a permanent nursing officer. The nursing officer had ordered the health worker to do a particular job, which the health worker refused to do. This led to an argument between the two, after which the health worker brought 30 other outsourced staff to confront the nursing officer. This incident revealed that police verification had not been done for the outsourced staff.

Ever since the Modi government came to power, it has been attempting to bring in outsourced nurses. In 2015, when such a move was made, the nurses at Sadarjung Hospital had protested, and it was dropped.

In 2016, after the All India Government Nurses Federation (AIGNF) complained, the Central government released an order stating that the ministry had decided against hiring through outsourcing mode. But they again made a similar attempt in 2017, which the nurses were able to stall.

Two nurses associations – The Trained Nurses Union of India and Indian Professional Nurses Association – have written to the Union Health Ministry condemning the order to hire outsourced nursing staff.

“We came to know that Safdarjung hospital administration has planned to recruit nurses by outsourcing method. And the Sai Communications have been given the contract to do the recruitments. We condemn the move. Nurses work in all clinical areas for 24x7 with accountability of patients, management of logistics, catering to various hospital services and even taking care of the infrastructure behind the curtain. Nursing profession is covered under the essential services and such type of service cannot be outsourced and we cannot jeopardise the life of the patients and compromise the standard of nursing care,” explained Shiny Chacko, secretary, TNAI-Delhi.

She added that the quality of workforce available by outsourcing method cannot be determined by the hospital staff and there are always chances that a unqualified person could be supplied, which is likely to endanger the life of the patients under the care of the hospital.

IPNA President Jiju Joy, in a letter to the government, said that the nurses render the most commendable service in the health care sector of the country.

“Such outsourcing appointments can only be seen as equivalent to underestimating the value of their service. Hiring of nursing officers through outsourcing companies should be completely avoided,” said Arun GS, IPNA general secretary.