Chandigarh: Sanitation crisis worsens at PGI amid outsourced workers’ strike

Outsourced workers at PGIMER continued their strike for the third consecutive day on Saturday, leading to deteriorating sanitation conditions at the hospital.
Teeming with patients, the emergency ward was seen with unsanitary washrooms, overflowing dustbins and a foul stench, putting them at increased risk of infection.
A doctor in the emergency, speaking anonymously, said the situation was spiraling out of control as cleaning routines had been disrupted. While the administration claimed that the impact was minimal as the regular staff was working extended hours, few employees were seen working efficiently.
The outsourced workers of PGIMER, mainly hospital attendants, are protesting overdue salaries and arrears. As the strike took effect, the hospital administration was forced to suspend all elective surgeries and stop new elective admissions starting Friday.
With the OPDs closed on Saturday on the occasion of Dussehra, the PGIMER administration sought the help of NGOs and NSS students’ part of PGIMER’s Saarthi project, and moved regular workers, who form only one-third of the total employee strength, to areas that needed urgent attention, like emergency and trauma.
Hospital attendants are responsible for a plethora of tasks, such as cleaning, sanitation, laundry, procuring medicines and materials from stores, moving patients with oxygen cylinders to different areas of the hospitals, opening different departments of the hospital, giving medicines to patients, sorting files and registration cards in OPDs and diet distribution.
As such, their strike has hit the smooth functioning of many hospitals systems, leaving doctors hard-pressed due to lack of staff in OPDs, wards and emergency areas.
No new OPD registrations on Monday
Amid these challenges, PGIMER will be curtailing OPD services on Monday, though essential services like emergency care, trauma and ICU will remain operational.
“While emergency, trauma and ICU services will continue as usual, OPD services will be limited to follow-up patients’ registrations from 8 am to 10 am on Monday, October 14. No new patients’ registrations will be done and online registrations, those already made, stand cancelled. Scheduled chemotherapy in the daycare unit will continue as planned,” a PGIMER spokesperson said in a statement while urging the public to cooperate.
Additionally, no elective admissions will be made and elective surgeries will continue to remain deferred.
Patients scheduled for elective procedures have been informed of postponements and hospitals in Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh have been asked not to refer patients to PGIMER until further notice.