Tuesday, 12 NOVEMBER 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Many patients expressed their concerns about the disruption in services including billing at the Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) hospital on Monday due to work boycott by Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam Limited (UPNL) workers. Notably, the UPNL workers organised a protest and boycotted their work due to the alleged failure to address their longstanding demands, including salary allowances and appointments. As a result, around 450 GDMC hospital staff members, also working under UPNL, joined the boycott, which has negatively impacted the services provided to patients at the hospital.
A patient Sara Khan expressed concern that the hospital workers boycotted the work on Monday which had disrupted services at the facility. Patients like her experienced long waiting time for billing and other services due to temporary employees who are unfamiliar with their duties, causing delays in attending to each patient. She emphasised that if the situation persists, patients will encounter numerous issues in receiving the services, prompting the hospital administration to address this matter promptly.
Another patient, Jagdesh Dimri said that he was suffering an increase in asthma due to the changing weather conditions, leading to frequent visits to the hospital. However, he faced considerable delay in the registration and billing process on Monday due to the absence of regular workers who were boycotting that day. He expressed concern over the disruption in hospital services caused by the absence of UPNL workers.
Other patients and even the security guard at the hospital echoed similar concerns regarding the impact of the boycotted work by UPNL workers on the hospital services.
The medical superintendent of the hospital Dr Anurag Aggarwal said that the absence of UPNL workers had partially impacted the hospital’s services. Approximately half of the staff at GDMC hospital, including nurses, billing staff and others, are UPNL appointees, resulting in around 450 workers boycotting work on Monday. However, to address this issue, the hospital administration has implemented alternative measures. This includes extending the hours of permanent staff, transferring data entry employees to the billing center, temporarily reassigning nurses from nursing colleges to the hospital and enlisting college students to provide services on Monday. Aggarwal emphasised that efforts are being made to ensure uninterrupted service at the hospital if the protest continues further.
