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.

He said the employees willing to stay with the hospital will be reinstated once the hospital was restarted. “Some of them will be adjusted in our main unit in Mohali while others can wait for some months before they are reinstated. The employees, not willing to do so, will be given their dues for sure,” he said, when asked about the employees demand regarding their pending salaries.

According to the protesters, the hospital was locked at about 4 pm in the afternoon yesterday without any prior notice to the employees of the hospital. They reportedly included workers from the housekeeping department, electric appliances supplier, and other associates of the hospital, who said the hospital had outstanding payments to give them.