KOCHI: A section of the nursing staff went on a strike at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) on Tuesday. Tension prevailed on the campus when the police resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowd which gathered as part of the protest. The nurses demanded that the management reinstate their colleagues who were terminated. They said that they had formed a unit of the United Nurses Organisation which is active in other districts. The union was formed at AIMS on December 2. They alleged that the management was trying to weaken the union. “When they terminated the president of the union and transferred its general secretary to Mysore with the intention of splitting the union we took out a protest demanding that the president be reinstated. Since we continued to protest, the management agreed for talks. They spoke to three members of the state committee of the union on Monday evening and gave them an appointment for talks at 12.30 pm on Tuesday,” said a member of the union. “But when the state committee members arrived for the talks they were beaten up. Three persons were injured, one of them seriously. So we intensified our strike and more nurses, about 1,000, joined the protest,” he said. When contacted the hospital sources had a different version. “The management did not get any representation on problems of nurses. Moreover, no notice was served regarding the strike. We got a complaint against a contract staff, whose tenure is nearly over, for immoral behaviour. Based on the complaint he was suspended. Some nurses staged a protest against the move. When they obstructed the casualty entrance, we called in the police,” said an official with the Public Relations Department. “Only about 190 nurses staged a protest,” he said. The police said that they resorted to lathicharge to disperse the crowd. A case has been registered as three members of the union were injured. The search for the attackers is on, they said.
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