Pune: Four days after it began, the statewide indefinite strike called by govt and semi-govt employees was suspended late on Friday evening after discussions with the authorities.The strike had affected operations at state-run facilities, including Sassoon General Hospital, where over 700 nurses had joined the stir in response to the call made by the Maharashtra State Government Employees Confederation (MSGEC).Long-pending demands raised included implementation of the Old Pension Scheme and increasing the retirement age from 58 to 60 years.Pragya Gaikwad, president of the Maharashtra Govt Nurses Association (Pune chapter), told TOI late on Friday, “After multiple rounds of discussions with govt, primarily the chief secretary, our parent association decided to suspend the strike temporarily. Govt has assured us that it will give us written assurances regarding our demands within the next 15 days. We will wait for a month and if they fail to do so, we will resume the strike.“The protest had since Tuesday steadily paralysed operations at Sassoon, western Maharashtra’s largest tertiary care hospital, with hundreds of major and minor surgeries and new admissions postponed. Hundreds of patients had been forced to look for private hospital options. Now, many are hoping for some relief after the strike’s suspension.On Friday as well, hospital authorities had deployed nursing students to fill the shortfall, but the lack of skilled and experienced nurses had hampered operations, forcing the hospital to avoid the extra patient load.Dr Yallapa Jadhav, medical superintendent at Sassoon, told TOI earlier on Friday, “I had appealed to all the nurses participating in the strike to end it and resume their work. Planned surgeries and new admissions have definitely been hampered. We had written to the state health department to provide us with some nurses from secondary and primary healthcare centres. We got around 400 nurses from nursing colleges and other hospitals, but it is still not enough to fulfill daily work demand here.“Gaikwad had clarified that the striking nurses were attending to emergency services, not not planned surgery or general ward patients.
