KOCHI: The nurses strike at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) entered the second day on Wednesday with more nurses joining in.Around 1,000 nurses of the institute and hundreds from other hospitals joined the strike demanding a solution for their problems, an AIMS staff-cum-member of the United Nurses Organisation said.“Around 300 nurses are working as we did not want to disrupt the functioning of the hospital,” he said. The district labour officer mediated the talks in which the management, representatives of the nurses’ union, P Rajeev MP and Hibi Eden MLA participated. Justice V R Krishna Iyer, P Rajeev, Hibi Eden, councillor M P Mahesh, Chandran Pillai and M C Josephine addressed the nurses and spoke to the management earlier in the day. The nurses’ union has raised its demands, which includes minimum wages as per government norm, insurance policies. The hospital authorities denied that functioning of departments was hit by the strike.But the mediating talks ended in a stalemate as both the management and the nurses’ union could not agree to each other’s demand. When the hospital authorities said that they could not relent to any of the demands, the organisation has made it clear that they would go ahead with the strike until their demands are met.Reports that the functioning of the hospital has been hit are baseless, doctors’ representative M G K Pillai said. Hundreds of nursing degree holders who are Amma’s devotees offered support to run the hospital, said a release. The strike caused difficulties for patients. Their slogans affected the mental state of patients, bystanders, according to a release. But the union alleged that that students alone can’t handle the situation that was also against norms. A section of the nursing staff are working, they said.
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