Grappling with mounting financial losses, the Grecian Hospital shut down its services, within one year of the start its operations in Ludhiana, here last evening, forcing about 50 odd employees to stage a protest and demand release of their pending salaries.

Various people, who gathered at the hospital site last evening, said the hospital management had neither given any notice before closing down operation nor cleared the employees’ pending payments.

The hospital management, on the other hand, maintained that there was some confusion with the protesters as hospital had closed down because of professional reasons and that the hospital would restart once the financial status of the hospital became stable.

The employees said that sudden closure of the hospital had left them shell-shocked . “The decision has left us jobless without being warned beforehand,” they said.

The hospital situated in Sarabha Nagar locality of the city, whose main unit is situated in Mohali, had started its OPD services last December. The management had pitched the hospital as a super-speciality hospital in cardiac and cancer care, services for which were started earlier this year.

Dr Shivpreet Singh Samra, managing director of the hospital, while speaking to Newsline on phone, said it was a temporary closure. “The hospital has been temporarily closed down and we are going to re-start it in two to three months. We had informed our employees in advance but I guess there was some communication gap which led to the protest by the class IV employees,” he said.

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