High court ruling to revise the minimum wage of nurses; 3 months granted to Kerala government

KOCHI: High court orders state to revise the minimum wage of nurses working in the private sector. Court granted three months to the state to come up with a newly revised plan. Court suggested government take the opinions of both nurses and hospital owners into account before doing the same.

The order is to revise the minimum wage which was agreed upon in 2018. It was after massive protests and strikes that the government agreed to revise the salary back then. 5 years back it was decided by the government that a hospital with 50-bed capacity has to pay at least 20,000 and a maximum of 30,000. Hospitals and nurses had approached with pleas against this decision.

The nurses had gone on protest saying that this wage is low. Currently the basic salary of a nurse working in government sector is 39,300 and the nurses who are on strike demands that their salary must also be raised to the same standards. The hospital managements raised the argument that goverment took a one-sided decision on the same without taking their opinion into consideration. Hence the court has asked the government to take the opinion of both parties before taking a final decision.