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Udupi : All of a sudden 16 workers of Kusamma Shambu Shetty Memorial Haji Abdulla Government Mother and Children  Hospital were dismissed here from their service in the hospital without prior notice late evening yesterday, Tuesday, August 24. Hence, the staff of the hospital staged a strike against the decision of the management of the hospital which also continued the strike today since morning, Wednesday, August 25.

The striking workers told the media today that some days back; along with five duty doctors, there was a staged strike against non-payment of May, June and July month’s salaries by the hospital management. Then local MLA Raghupathy Bhat took initiative to provide the salaries from state government’s Suvarna Arogya Trust and released Rs. 50 lakh with the condition to give the salaries for the workers. But the management has given only 60% salaries to the workers for the month of May, they said.

Hence, once again the staff of the hospital staged a strike for the non-payment of salaries and once again MLA Raghupathy Bhat intervened in the issue and called a meeting by the Deputy Commissioner G. Jagadeesha. As per the meeting the hospital management agreed to release the pending amount to the workers for their pending salaries. However, the hospital management without any prior notice in late evening dismissed two duty doctors, two receptionists, two administration staff, two laboratory staff, two house-keeping staff, one staff from transport division, one from CSSD, one from security department and two from nursing department of the hospital. Hence, all of sudden, all 180 workers of the hospital staged a strike against the management which has continued today.

The hospital staff has demanded to release all pending salaries for the workers and need to take over the hospital by the government and drop the present management. Meanwhile 16 dismissed workers have given a complaint in the labour department against the dismissal from their service without legal prior notice.

The striking workers told the media that there are 180 workers in the hospital and do their work on a shift basis. Hence, the patients were never disturbed due to the strike. The medication for the patients will be going on as usual. Even the out-patient department has been working as usual. However, our fight to get justice will be going till our demands are met. This management had given salaries correctly since November 19 when the hospital was started for one year, after that no salaries were given correctly. The Laboratory in-charge Chaitra said that if this management continues, we are not able to work in the hospital.