Maharashtra nurses strike enters day 3, disrupts patient care at Sassoon Hospital

This strike has specifically affected the admission of new patients and scheduled surgeries, as the majority of the hospital's nursing staff has joined the protest in solidarity. Out of the 900 nurses posted at SGH, at least 748 are participating in the strike, resulting in disruptions to both major and minor surgical procedures.

A meeting held late Thursday night with the State Chief Secretary failed to reach a conclusion. Consequently, the associations representing the state government employees decided to continue their agitation, as the talks had reached a deadlock.

According to the TOI report, BJ Medical College and SGH dean Dr Eknath Pawar admitted, "In the past three days, the strike has impacted patient care at our hospital. Nurses are the backbone of any tertiary care hospital, and without them, we cannot function. Nursing college students deployed to fill in the gap are helpful, but they lack the required experience we need to run a hospital like Sassoon."

Speaking to The Daily, the Hospital medical superintendent, Dr Yallapa Jadhav, said, "On Thursday, between 8 am and 2 pm, we conducted 65 admissions, 16 major operations and only 17 minor operations. We had five deliveries in the past 24 hours, of which three were C-sections. We also had 1,040 patients at the OPD and 991 at the IPD."

Meanwhile, to make better use of manpower, the hospital has shifted patients to a single ward; consequently, some wards are currently vacant.

Responding to a call by the Maharashtra State Government Employees Confederation (MSGEC), state government nurses have also joined the strike. This strike is being staged to highlight long-pending issues, primarily including demands for the implementation of the Old Pension Scheme and for raising the retirement age from 58 to 60 years.

According to hospital statistics, the average daily number of patients visiting the Outpatient Department (OPD) typically exceeds 1,555, while the number of patients in the Inpatient Department (IPD) is typically 1,081 per day. On average, 46 major and 166 minor surgeries are performed daily at the hospital, and 192 new patients are admitted each day.