Covid-19 patients endangered as nurses refuse to treat critical cases

• The unions cited several demands including salary increments, allowances and promotions

By Piyumi Fonseka and Kalani Kumarasinghe  

With mounting workloads due to the raging pandemic, trade unions of the health sector resorted to trade union action over the past week.

The unions cited several demands including salary increments, allowances and promotions. The trade unions said nursing officers were underpaid and were forced to work in worsening conditions.  

Although the worker- groups assured that the trade union action would have minimum impact on patients, several reports portrayed a different story. Sources that shared views with the Daily Mirror said that patients had undergone extreme difficulties due to the strike action at various hospitals across the island.   

At a Base Hospital in the Central Province where a number of patients were being treated for Covid-19, Doctors had been forced to manage critical patients with minimum or no assistance from  the nursing staff. In certain hospitals, the strike had even impacted emergency procedures such as surgeries with several staff members refusing to assist or hand- out necessary equipment, it is reported.   

 (Read more about this story on page 6)