Over 90 village health nurses went on a hunger strike here on Tuesday pressing for a charter of demands, including promotion for them to the post of District Maternal and Child Health Officer.
The protest was led by the State president of Tamil Nadu Government VHN Association, Nirmala, in the presence of district presidents, V. Roopasoundari and S. Anthoniammal.
The agitators wanted the Government to fill up all the vacancies in the posts of VHN and Sanitary Inspector.
The VHNs who have completed 20 years of service should be promoted as DMCHO after 10 months training instead of filling up the posts through TNPSC group examinations.
Ms. Anthoniammal said that the VHNs were serving a population of around 10,000 people. While their demand was to make the population ceiling at 5,000 in plains and 3,000 in hilly terrains, the Government was introducing auxiliary nurse midwife in every health sub-centres along with VHN.
“While VHNs are expected to around their jurisdictional areas, the AHNs are given the responsibility to take care of the pregnant mothers and infants at the sub-centres. We want to increase the number of sub-centres for providing better service,” she added.
The VHNs also wanted the new software introduced for making entry of pregnant women that would help them get maternity assistance under Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy Memorial Maternity Assistance scheme to be simplified.
They also wanted to increase the monthly wages for the post of ayah to ₹2,000 from the existing ₹100.