Health workers protest against failed electoral promises

More than 2000 contract health workers across 17 categories of health and medical services in the district are in protest mode, demanding fulfillment of promises made to them by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in the run up to elections in 2014.

“We have waited for four long years but has nothing happened. We are forced to take the issue up as a movement now,” say members of the Telangana Medical & Health Joint Action Committee (TMHJAC).

Several health workers, including auxiliary nurse midwives, 104 and 108 employees and pharmacists at the village level have put down their tools, in the ‘tool down’ protests affecting many. On Friday too, many multi-purpose health workers staged a protest outside the District Medical & Health Office. According to them, the government showed no signs of implementing the much-pending regularisation of the contract and the outsource employees, equal pay for equal work, and an HR policy, among a category-wise list of 53 demands. The protesters also demanded that ‘order to serve’ instructions – serving in the same office and not subject to relocation – by the government should be squashed, and employees should be transferred and posted to the newly-formed districts.

The TMHJAC, a platform of a total 21 workers unions also includes employees of Arogya Sri, Urban Health Centres, blood banks and lab technicians. The JAC said it will undertake massive protest in the ‘Mahadharna’ on May 8 in front of the office of the Director of Health Services.