PGI Sangrur, a satellite center of PGI Chandigarh, is an autonomous institute under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It was started in 2016 and initially, staff was recruited on a contract or outsourced basis to run the temporary OPD. In July 2022, 341 posts were sanctioned by the Ministry to expand the services in the hospital which included 195 posts of Nursing Officers.
An advertisement for the same was released in national as well as local dailies in October 2022. For running OTs and Hospitals on a temporary basis, 27 Nursing officers were recruited through an outsourcing agency that provides manpower services till the time regular nursing officers join these posts. Meanwhile, the recruitment process for regular Nursing officer posts was started for which, a written exam was held in March 2023 at various centers across the country (13 in Punjab only). For 195 posts of Nursing Officers, 33000 applications were received in total. Out of these, 2800 applications were from Punjab only, and 18 out of them got selected for the said post.
It is pertinent to mention that a few of the outsourced Nursing staff also appeared for the exam but were unable to clear it. After the result was published, the outsourced company was told to withdraw these temporary Nursing Officers as mentioned in the existing terms and conditions. Afterwards, these nursing officers when informed about their cessation of terms of appointment, however, they demanded that they be continued on service along with regular ones and when their demands were not met, they started protests on 10.09.23 against the PGI Administration in the form of dharna at the gate of PGI Sangrur. Initially, the gate of the hospital was blocked and local administration was requested to intervene.
A day later, Medical Superintendent, PGI Chandigarh, Prof Vipin Koushal, and Dr. RPS Bhogal also met the representatives of these protesters and tried to counsel them but all in vain. Later on, the Kisan Unions have now come in their support and are staging protests using loudspeakers at the hospital causing inconvenience to patients and staff of the hospital. These protesters have been repeatedly found misleading local people and misusing social media against the PGI Administration, defaming both the Administration as well as Charge of the Centre.
It is also stated that out of the total outsourced staff employed at PGIMER Satellite Centre, Sangrur – 65% are from Punjab only. To date, approx. 3,50,000 patients have been seen in the OPD, nearly 100 admissions in IPD and more than 100 patients have been surgically operated upon.
To operationalize the services at the Centre in a smooth manner, senior consultants and doctors from PGIMER Chandigarh have been visiting the Centre in order to achieve the vision of Govt. of India, to provide quality healthcare services to the people of Punjab.
