The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Patients left in lurch as NIMS staff intensify stir

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 25, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Patients left in lurch as NIMS staff intensify stir

Staff Reporter

Proposal for replacing medical reimbursement with health insurance triggers protests

HEALTHCARE A CASUALTY: Patient services were partially affected at NIMS on Thursday after employees intensified their strike. — Photo: D. Gopalakrishnan

HYDERABAD: Patients at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences are once again caught in the conflict between the institute's management and its 2,000-odd employees.

A 12-day-old lunch-hour demonstration protesting against replacement of employee medical treatment reimbursement with a medical health insurance scheme, escalated into a daylong protest on Thursday. With attempts to defuse the situation through talks not yielding results, agitators indicated the protest could intensify.

Both institute authorities and agitators denied any inconvenience to patients, but attendants of some patients alleged the entire hospital machinery had moved into slow gear with the focus being on the strike.

Police complaint

Relations between the management and employees took an ugly turn after a few employees lodged a complaint with the Punjagutta police, alleging that some administrative staff members manhandled female nurses while trying to stop them from wearing black badges. NIMS Executive Registrar G. Srinivasulu, however, denied any such incident.

The protest began after the NIMS Executive Board felt the expenditure on medical facilities for employees and their dependants, draining its coffers of around Rs. 4 crores every year, was `abnormally high.' The board, after comparing costs with those incurred by other Government organisations, mooted a medical insurance scheme. Mr. Srinivasulu said the scheme would cut expenditures to Rs.1.5 crore per year. Orders were issued earlier this month announcing its implementation, triggering off the protest. With the employees refusing to come to the discussion table unless the scheme was withdrawn, the management kept the order in abeyance.

However, employees unions were still protesting, he said. The management, which issued a statement appealing to the employees and representatives of unions and associations to withdraw their protest as the scheme was kept in abeyance, said the matter would be placed before the next executive board meeting after consultations.

NIMS Employees Union (Ministerial) vice president P. Rajkumar said it was wrong on the part of the management to try to implement the scheme without consulting employees.

Doctors' protest

Meanwhile, the NIMS Faculty Association, comprising doctors, is also in a protest mode, with doctors wearing black badges and deciding to boycott the heads of departments meeting scheduled for November 26.

A letter from the Association to the NIMS director demanded that the existing system of health to the medical faculty and their dependants had to be continued along with reimbursement of medical bills when doctors undergo treatment outside NIMS.

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