AIIMS nurses call off strike as HC intervenes, issues notice to union

New Delhi: After the All India Institute of Medical Sciences approached the Delhi High Court in a rush to stop the nurses' strike on its hand and get them back to caring for patients and Justice Navin Chawla restrained the Union from continuing the strike, the president of the nurses' union called off the strike, saying they wanted to first comply with court orders.

Almost 3,000 nurses from the premiere hospital, which is also a COVID-19 dedicated hospital were on strike all day on Tuesday, after which the Delhi High Court was asked to intervene in the matter.

Appearing through Advocate VSR Krishna, AIIMS asserted that the strike also violated a Division Bench order prohibiting any such action by AIIMS employees inside the campus. "Nurses left their jobs, all clinical work. AIIMS is a Covid hospital," Krishna said.

Union president Harish Kumar Kajla said they are examining the court order and may file an appeal against it. He added that the administration had promised to resolve the nurses' issues in a week.

The nurses' union had called for a flash strike on Monday after it found out that the administration had gone ahead with contractual hiring before dialogues with the union had ended. As a result, the nursing staff left their duties on Monday, even as the hospital implored them to return for work in the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic the country is still dealing with.

The high court stopped the strike till further orders and issued a notice to the nurses' union, posting the matter next for January 2021.

Meanwhile, after talks with the nurses' union, the administration stopped the process of hiring contractual nursing staff and issued a notification cancelling the walk-in interviews, which had initially sparked off the strike.