Over 85 workers engaged in security and housekeeping at Medica hospital here went on strike on Thursday after the management announced that it would shut down the hospital in September.

Located at South Park in Bistupur, Kantilal Gandhi Memorial Hospital was being referred to as Medica hospital since September 2014 when the Calcutta-based hospital chain signed a deal to manage and run it. Within a short span of time, Medica, with 120 beds, was able to earn a reputation of being a dependable private health hub with efficient services.

On Thursday, Medica transferred 40 of its nurses in Jamshedpur to its hospital in Ranchi. As of now, the Jamshedpur Medica has 15 in-patients and a handful of doctors and nurses.

Medica’s Jamshedpur spokesman Anand Srivastava said their contract with Kantilal Gandhi Memorial Hospital was to end on September 13, 2020. “The agreement was to run the hospital. It not been renewed. Nor will it be renewed anymore. Our management has already served a closure notification,” he told to The Telegraph Online.

However, internal sources revealed that Medica’s management had been thinking of stopping operations as occupancy rates at the hospital had dropped from 80 per cent to 30 per cent in the last year.

Finally, the hospital management issued a closure notice on Wednesday evening.

Medica may have revealed its hand in April when it issued an order to transfer 31 nurses to its Calcutta hospital. Ultimately, all the 31 nurses refused to go to Calcutta and resigned.

The security staff and housekeeping staff who went on strike on Thursday said they belonged to an agency that was contracted by the hospital to offer these services. They said none of them, 85 in all, had been paid salaries for the last three months.

"We are 45 housekeeping staff. We have been working at the hospital since the past six years. Now where will we get a job? Moreover, the agency which had kept us on behalf of the hospital management has not paid salaries for the past three months," said one of them.

A woman, who was among 40 security personnel, said they, too, had not been paid for three months. "We will also be rendered jobless. Where will we get a job in the time of this pandemic,” she asked.