Suicide threat by nurses triggers tension around Mar Baselious Hospital on 114th strike day, at Kothamangalam.

Three nurses working at the Mar Baselious Hospital, at Kothamangalam inErnakulam district in central Kerala threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the hospital on the Independence Day on Wednesday creating tensed situation in the area.

The nurses had positioned on the terrace since morning demanding an immediate solution to their 114-day old strike. Police and fire-brigade personnel were soon deployed near the building to avert any untoward incident.

As the news spread, a huge crowd thronged around the hospital shouting slogans against the hospital management. After some time they blocked the adjoining national highway linking Kochi and Dhanushkodi.

Meanwhile an Independence Day rally led by the municipal chairman was passing though the area and the agitating crowd and rally participants started shouting slogans against each other, heightening the tension.

The police had to chase the crowd on couple of occasions when some of them started pelting stones. Top officials of the police, district administration and labour department are camping at the site.

Government-mediated talks between the representatives of the union of striking nurses and hospital management had not yielded results till 6 pm, the district labour officer T V Narayanan Namboodiri told TOI here. The Labour Minister Shibu Baby John himself had talked to the nurses’s representatives over phone to pacify the nurses. But the nurses insisted that they need the compromise packages to be implemented immediately as the management had gone back on the agreements on several occasions in the past.

Namboodiri said the nurses had declined to take any food from morning. When media persons tried to reach them, the nurses threatened to jump off the building The main demands of the nurses include implementation of established working hour norms, shift system and cessation of dismissal of nurses by management under the pretext of some contract conditions, he said.

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The surprising thing has noticed now that there is no much media update about this strike whereas Amrutha hospital strike was reporting by all mainstream media on hourly basis.

No much updates in social network about Mar Baselios Hospital strike, whereas not only Amrutha hospital management but also the image of Mata amruthanandamayi were continuously targeted through social networks using many false allegations.

Now where is the trade union leaders and politicians who were very much bothered about nurses problems when the strike was going on at Amrutha hospital and shankers hospital in kerala.

We neither support any hospital management’s dirty activities nor against the nurses strike for their wellness .But we should try to understand the response of the crocked minds.

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