Hundreds of nurses and contractual health workers have gone on a strike in Mumbai’s state-run King Edward Memorial Hospital. The paramedics and doctors have been protesting outside the hospital in masks and protective gears.
As per reports, the protest broke out after a contractual employee working in the Covid-19 ward died on Sunday night. According to reports, he was reportedly unwell and wanted leave, which he was allegedly denied. He was not provided with any sort of facility or help from the administration. His subsequent death has sparked a huge protest outside the state-run hospital.
Protesting employees have demanded that his family should be compensated with a job and financial aid.
#Breaking | Contractual health workers go on strike in Mumbai’s KEM Hospital. Health workers protest shoddy infrastructure in hospitals.
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) May 26, 2020
Kajal Iyer with details. pic.twitter.com/fJuPycgJwg
Allegations made by protesting employees of the state-run KEM hospital in Mumbai
The protesting contractual workers have alleged that their supervisor has been making extremely derogatory and mean comments and has been threatening to sack them if they do not turn up to work or work according to the liking of the superiors.
The protesting staff have also highlighted the apathy of the state-run KEM hospital by sharing disturbing images of body bags on stretchers lying unattended in the corridors of the hospital.
BJP MLA Nitesh Rane took to Twitter to share one such image where dead bodies are seen lying in a corridor. He captioned his tweet as: “This is KEM hospital Mumbai!”
This is KEM hospital Mumbai ! pic.twitter.com/5KQQcCrYCH
— nitesh rane (@NiteshNRane) May 26, 2020
Corona infected corpse seen lying with patients undergoing treatment in KEM hospital
The KEM hospital is a dedicated coronavirus facility in Mumbai. Earlier in the month, Nitesh Rane had shared few videos from the same hospital showing dead bodies of coronavirus patients lying in unattended along with those undergoing treatment.
The video shared on May 11 showed at least three bodies wrapped in blue polythene lying next to patients undergoing treatment.
KEM hospital today at 7 am !
— nitesh rane (@NiteshNRane) May 11, 2020
I think the @mybmc wants us to get used to seeing dead bodies around us while taking treatment bcz they just don’t want to improve!
Feel bad for the health workers too who hv to work in such conditions!!
Is there any hope ? pic.twitter.com/E1VsmAveou
Similar incidents
Similar images had also emerged from Sion Hospital in Mumbai, which throws light on the apathy of the state-run hospitals in Maharashtra. Political leader, like BJP’s Nitesh Rane and Congress’ Milind Deora, had tweeted about this incident and expressed shock at the state-run hospital’s blatant lapse in managing the coronavirus crisis.
Earlier, a similar incident was reported from the Cooper hospital where a patient was allegedly left unattended and had to spend the night with two corpses around him.
Maharashtra remains the worst-hit state with the total number of coronavirus cases crossing 52,000-mark with 31,000 in Mumbai alone.
