About 43 nurses, who worked through the first and the second waves of the pandemic, have been laid off by the RML Hospital. File photo
| Photo Credit: PTI
When COVID-19 first hit Delhi in 2020, Josy Cherian, then 34, a nurse at the Central government-run Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, was seven months pregnant and a whole lot scared. But she still worked through long hours of duty in PPE kits without food, water or loo breaks to keep up with the demand for patient care.
During the second wave of the pandemic, her husband, who was working at another hospital, tested positive for COVID-19 and passed away last April.
Two weeks ago, Ms. Cherian lost her job.
“Now that I’m out of a job, there is no other income. I have to take care of my children,” Ms. Cherian, a mother of two children, said.
She had applied for the Delhi government’s compensation for her husband’s death, but the government is yet to release any money.
Ms. Cherian is not alone in her misery.
With Delhi bracing for another possible surge in COVID-19 cases, 43 nurses, who worked through the first and the second waves of the pandemic, have been laid off by the RML Hospital. Most of these nurses had joined the hospital in 2009 and worked for 13 years. Almost all of them have crossed the upper age limit to apply at other hospitals too.
These nurses were terminated as the government hired regular ones after an exam conducted by AIIMS, Delhi.
“I worked during the second wave also and never expected that we would be terminated. Now that I’m over 35, I can’t apply anywhere else,” Ms. Cherian said. “We are yet to get our November salary and the 14 days we worked in December,” she added.
Sreeja Unni, 36, whose service was also terminated, said following a request by the nurses, a group of MPs from the southern States, in a letter, had urged the Union Health Minister to reinstate them, but the government has yet to convey anything to the nurses.
“We never imagined that we would be asked to leave. During the pandemic, all of us worked really hard. It was hard to wear PPE kits and work for five hours,” she said.
The mother of a six-year-old boy, Ms. Unni said she feared passing on the virus to her son during the first wave of the pandemic.