GURUGRAM: Around 650 workers in Gurugram, part of the
National Health Mission, absented themselves from work on Wednesday, to protest the state government’s move to create a centralised control room for ambulance and emergency services, which could lead to layoffs. Several workers involved in the ongoing district-wide measles-rubella campaign were also absent from the vaccination drive.
The workers also demanded they be paid according to the revised salaries, for which by-laws were ratified in December 2017.
They have given the government until May 30 to meet their demands, failing which they have threatened a full-fledged strike. Health services at Civil Hospital were affected on Wednesday, as ambulances couldn’t be provided to most patients at government facilities, except for emergencies.
According to Hariraj, the district president of Haryana
NHM Karamchari Sangh, ambulance service for casualty, NICU and road accidents were not disrupted, but NHM workers sat at their workplace refusing to work in other cases. “Around 2,000-2,500 employees will get laid-off, and the government is unconcerned,” he said.
Senior NHM union leaders alleged the government is hiring outsourced ambulance drivers who are not properly trained and could pose a risk to the life of emergency medical technicians (EMT) and patients being transported. Currently, Haryana has a fleet of 352 ambulances and 12 medical mobile units, which are operated out of district hospitals.
However, Gurugram civil surgeon Dr B K Rajora said it was only a token strike.
“The employees, including nurses, didn’t work for two hours, but returned after that,” he said. Among those not attending duty on Wednesday were 42 ambulance drivers. Several patients who were referred to higher facilities, had to make do with private vehicles, or the few ambulances that were available. “Work was managed with 10 outsourced drivers,” said Rajora, indicating there were no major disruptions.
About the salary revision, state president of the Haryana NHM Sangh, Rehan
Raja, said, “Our by-laws were implemented in December 2017, but there were some anomalies. We’d written a letter to the health minister on this, who had asked the managing director of NHM to set up a committee for a probe. But none of this has happened yet.” Ameet P
Kumar, MD, NHM Haryana, said this is the tenth time in the past year that workers have threatened to strike. “Haryana is the first state to issue contractual service by-laws for NHS workers, incurring Rs 80 crore liability for the state government,” she said, adding the by-laws have been implemented, and any pendency is because there’s no record, for which workers will have to approach district officials.
Representative image