While patients’ rights are an important element to be ensured by healthcare organizations, employees who work in hospitals are also entitled to certain rights. These rights are largely based on our constitution and legal system and apply to all employees irrespective of individual contract that they may have with the employer. Like all other legal requirements applicable to a hospital, the employing organization is also responsible to ensure that employees rights are fulfilled and protected. It is important that all employees are aware of their rights so that same can be ensured. Below is the list of employee rights.
A. Rights related to working hours and overtime
1. Right to refuse to work beyond maximum working hours: Employees have a right to refuse to work beyond maximum working hours, which is 48 hours in a week and 9 hours in a day (as per factories act, 1948).
2. Right to accept or reject overtime work: In case an employee is required to work beyond maximum working hours, as is the case for many healthcare delivery staff, the additional working hours shall be considered as over-time by the employer. The employee has a right to accept or reject the overtime, without the threat of any adverse consequences to his/her job or career.
3. Right to be compensated for overtime work: In a case where the employee works over-time, he/she should be paid the wage of overtime at the rate of twice of his/her wage for that period.
B. Rights related to Leaves and Holidays
4. Right to earn leaves: The number of leaves given to an employee in a year is decided by the organization and forms a part of the employment contract. However, the number of annual leaves cannot be less than 1 day for every 20 days of work, which translates into 15 days of annual leaves, minimum. The employee is entitled to receive salary/wage for the leave days and up-to a maximum of 30 leave days can be carried forward to next year. If employment contract expires, the employee is entitled to be compensated for the leave days that he/she has earned but not availed.
5. Right to sickness leave: While for certain kinds of employment such as plantation labour, journalist etc., number of minimum sickness leaves is specified as per their respective legislation, for hospitals and healthcare employees, the sickness leaves terms and conditions, such as number of sick leaves, conditions for availing such leaves, payments to be paid during sickness leaves etc. can be decided by the employing organization as per shops and establishment act.
6. Right to avail national holidays and state declared festival holidays: As per National Holiday Act of India it is mandatory to keep holidays on Republic day (26th January), Independence Day (15th August) and Gandhi Jayanti (2nd October). Festival holidays are state specific and employers have to follow state declared holidays also.
7. Right to be compensated for working on National/declared holidays: In hospitals, some healthcare staff need to be working on national holidays. For this, the hospital must take approval from concerned authorities and the staff who work on these holidays are entitled to receive the double wage for the day and a compensatory leave.
8. Right to avail maternity leave by eligible women employees: As per the August 2016 amendment to Maternity benefit act, the duration maternity leave that should be given mandatorily to an eligible employee has been fixed to 26 weeks (earlier it was 12 weeks). However, women with 2 or more children already, are entitled to 12 weeks’ maternity leave only. In case of adoption, the woman who is adopting the baby is entitled to a leave of 12 weeks, if the baby being adopted is of less than 3 months of age. A commissioning mother (biological mother who uses her egg to create an embryo implanted in any other woman), is also entitled to a leave of 12 weeks. The maternity leave is required to be awarded with full pay if the employee has completed at least 80 days of employment before the maternity leave is availed.
9. Paternity leave (as per company policy): Currently there is no law that makes paternity leave mandatory for fathers of expected babies. However, most government organizations and good private organizations generally have the policy of granting up-to 15 days of paternity leaves.
C. Rights related to remuneration for work
10. Right for protection of minimum wage: Employees have a right to receive compensation for their work in form of salaries/wages, which should not be less than the minimum wage as fixed under minimum wage act. The minimum wage limit is set by every state according to the different level of skill.
11. Right to receive payment on time: As per payment of wages act, employees have the right to receive their agreed-upon salaries on time as per the frequency of pay-out decided by the employing organization. The frequency of payment cannot exceed one month. In case an employee is terminated or discontinuing the employment, he/she has a right to receive the balance payment within 2 days of the termination.
12. Right to avail employee provident fund benefit: Employees who draw a salary of less than Rs. 15,000/- per month are eligible for enrolment in EPF scheme, where 12% of basic pay is contributed by employees’ salary and the same amount is contributed by the employer. The employee has full right to the amount in his/her EPF account and it can be used by the employee as per the rules and conditions of EPF. Enrollment of employees earning more than Rs. 15,000/- in EPF is at the discretion of the employer.
13. Right to receive gratuity payment: Employee who completes 5 years of service with an organization has a right to receive gratuity at the time of terminating his/her employment with the organization. The amount of gratuity payable is as per Gratuity act as per which 15 days wages shall be calculated by dividing the last drawn wages by 26 and multiplying the result with 15. This amount shall then be multiplied by the total number of years of service rendered by the employee to the organization. The maximum gratuity that is payable is fixed to 20 lacs of rupees. Gratuity however can be denied by employer to an employee on disciplinary grounds.
14. Change of ownership of business: In case the hospital business is being acquired by another employer, the employees of the hospital has few rights as given below
- If they are being offered to continue as an employee, they must be informed about change in terms and condition of employment and given an opportunity and necessary time to accept or refuse the same
- If they are being discontinued, then all employee who have completed 1 year or more are entitled to received retrenchment compensation which is equal to 15 days’ average pay for each year of service or part thereof
- In addition to retrenchment compensation, employee must also be given at-least one month’s notice or wages in lieu thereof
D. Rights related to health and safety:
15. Right to health and safety at the workplace: Employees have a right to be safe and healthy at the workplace. This means that the workplace environment should not pose any significant harm to the employees. It is organization’s responsibility to provide necessary infrastructure and resources to ensure that employees are safe and healthy. In hospital context it could mean that employees have necessary PPE to protect themselves from infections, radiation safety measures are in place, biomedical waste hazards are taken care of etc.
16. Right to be compensated for health hazard due to employment: Employees have a right to be compensated for injury, accident, disease or death that occurs during the course of employment. The course of employment means that the hazard happened while the employee was on job or the hazard is arising out of the nature of work that the employee does. These include occupational hazards such as radiation-related health hazards, various kinds of infections that the nurse and doctors are exposed to etc. As per workmen’s compensation act, 1923 the compensation in case of death ranges from Rs. 80,000/- to Rs. 4.56 lakhs which are payable to the legal heir and in case of permanent total disability it ranges from Rs. 90,000/ to Rs. 5.48 lacs. For other accidents, injuries and diseases it should be according to the level of hazard and cover the expenses required for treatment.
17. Prevention from sexual harassment at workplace: Under ‘Prevention from sexual harassment at workplace’ every female employee has a right to be protected and feel safe from any kind of sexual harassment. The employers are required to have a sexual harassment prevention committee which can be accessed by any female employee. The investigation must be undertaken by the committee in case of complaints and action shall be taken if sexual harassment is determined.
E. Basic constitutional rights:
18. Right to non-discrimination: Non-discrimination is the fundamental right of every Indian citizen and same gets applied in employment also. Every employee has a right to not be discriminated on grounds such as gender, religion, region, caste, socio-economic status etc. for things like hiring, promotion, payment and termination. The employer, however, can have different terms and conditions with an employee on the basis of criteria linked to the performance of work such as qualification, experience etc. In case employee feels that he is being discriminated by the employer on grounds that are not justified, civil proceedings can be initiated against the employer.
19. Right to privacy: Right to privacy is a fundamental right of every Indian, as per constitution of India. Employees can exercise this right to refuse to share private information about himself/herself that is not relevant to the work or business of the organization. An employer can only intrude into the private information of employee up-to-the extent necessary for the work of the employee. Further, employees also have a right to refuse to share his/her information available with the employer with any external party without employee’s permission.
20. Equal remuneration: Equal remuneration act gives the right to all employees to equal pay for equal work. Discrimination in payment cannot be done between employees who do work that is equal in all respect. Both genders must receive similar remuneration for the similar type of work.
