Birgunj, August 31 :

Demanding that their salaries and allowances be hiked, paramedics of the National Medical College Teaching Hospital staged a sit-in at the main gate of the hospital from 8 am today.

Services were affected due to the strike. The hospital management asked the doctors to discharge all the patients admitted to the hospital after 12 as MBBS interns couldn’t cope with the shortage of manpower.

The paramedics said they would padlock the account division of the hospital and the office of the managing director and begin a relay hunger strike from tomorrow.

The employees said they were staging the phasewise strike because the hospital management didn’t increase their salaries this year. Altogether 100 paramedics are working in the hospital.

“We will continue our strike until our 11-point demands are met,” Grishma Pradhan, a member of the Paramedical Employees Struggle Committee, said.

MD of the hospital Basaruddin Ansari said the hospital management was ready to sort out the matter through talks. “The increase in salaries of the staffers was delayed due to some internal problems,” Ansari said, adding, “It is irresponsible on the part of the hospital staffers to stage the strike without informing the management first.”