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Supplementary medical professionals to strike today

04 Jul 2021

By Dinitha Rathnayake   The Joint Council of Professions Supplementary to Medicine will engage in strike action from 8 a.m. today (5) with the participation of about 50,000 members, according to the Joint Council President Ravi Kumudesh. Speaking to The Morning yesterday, Kumudesh said the strike would be based on 14 demands including promotion, staff grade, and allowance. “President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took steps to provide immediate solutions to five out of seven demands made by the Public Services United Nurses Union. The President assured to provide solutions to the other two demands from the next Budget during a meeting held with the union leaders. However, we feel that we were ignored after the President’s decisions. All solutions were given in favour of nurses, not health workers,” he said. According to Kumudesh, the strike today would continue until they get a favourable response from the authorities. In a meeting held with the Public Services United Nurses Union at the Presidential Secretariat on 2 July, President Rajapaksa decided to implement the five demands including;  opening up of a University of Nursing, reinstatement of staff status which was suspended during the Yahapalana Government’s tenure by circular 32/2017 on 7 December 2017, reinstatement of the mechanism to make promotions from Grade iii to Grade ii in five years and Grade ii to Grade i in seven years, Rs.20,000 annual uniform allowance, and referral of the proposal to consider the current 36-hour working hours as five days (30 hours) a week, to a special committee. The President also agreed to provide an allowance of Rs. 10,000 and an additional service allowance of 1/100 of the basic salary as mentioned in a circular issued by the Ministry of Finance on 24 December 2014 in the upcoming Budget. About 38,000 nurses attached to 1,103 health institutions, 16 nursing schools, and 248 MOH offices took part in the union action.    


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