Nurses Strike: HC directs AIIMS to set up Grievance Board

New Delhi: A day after the protesting nurses called off their strike following its direction, the Delhi High court on Wednesday asked the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to form a board for hearing the grievances of the staffers.

Highlighting that the AIIMS is an institute of excellence and on the functioning of the medical facility, the bench of Justice Yashwant Varma called for maintaining harmony between the parties.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier published that following the suspension of Harish Kajla, AIIMS nursing union called for an indefinite strike. Meanwhile, responding to an urgent plea moved by AIIMS, the Delhi High Court has directed the Union to ensure that its workers including nursing officers immediately rejoin work forthwith pending further orders passed in the matter.

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During the course of the hearing, it asked AIIMS authorities not to take any punitive measures on the persons identified in the incident immediately and if they find anything wrong, then "take it in accordance with the law".

"Do not take any immediate action. Let things cool down. Take undertaking, set up a board. You have to strike a balance," the bench stated.

Nurses union counsel apprised that the union has already decided to call off the strike.

After the submissions of the parties, the bench said that the matter will be heard further on July 29.

In the previous hearing, the court had noted the alarming trend of nursing officers and other essential workers deputed in AIIMS going on strike and that the development resulted in the cancellation of various emergency operations and had seriously crippled its functioning.

The nurses union began an indefinite strike on Tuesday after its President Harish Kajla was suspended by the hospital administration, demanding the rollback of the action and stopping any kind of measures against union executives and union members of main OT.

Kajla was suspended on Monday night in connection with the April 22 incident of disrupting OT patient services.

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