Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) prohibiting strikes by Class-III and Class-IV employees in the state health sector. The action comes in the wake of the Odisha Nursing Employees Association’s threat to go for cease-work agitation from August 27.
According to a notification issued by the Home (Special Section) department, the order will remain in force for a period of six months and aims at prohibiting the nurses, paramedics and other Health department from going on strike. Members of the Odisha Nursing Employees Association have been wearing black badges to press on their 10-point charter of demands and planning a token strike without affecting patient care by holding a rally in Bhubaneswar on August 23.
“In the interest of Public, it is necessary to prohibit strikes in the form of cessation of work by nurses, pharmacists, paramedics, technicians and other Class-III and Class-IV employees in government hospitals and dispensaries in the state,” the Home department notification read.
The move by the Odisha government will also apply to contractual employees in services/engagements connected with the maintenance of medical services in district headquarters hospitals, sub-divisional hospitals, area hospitals, CHCs, PHCs, municipality hospitals and ESI hospitals.
People working in the state-run medical colleges and hospitals and other autonomous health institutions receiving grant-in-aid from the state government, specifically Acharya Harihar Post Graduate Institute of Cancer, Regional Spinal Injury Centre, jail hospitals, and police hospitals will also be covered under the provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance (ESMA) Act.
