12k contractual health staff threaten to go on strike from Sat

Ranchi: Over 12,000 contractual employees of the state department of health, medical education and family welfare threatened to go on an indefinite strike from August 8 after their talks with the government did not yield results on Wednesday.
Among those threatening a strike are nurses, lab technicians, OT technicians, pharmacists and other clinical staff, who are the mainstay of Jharkhand’s fight against Covid-19.
A strike under the banner Jharkhand Anubandhit Para Chikitsakarmi Sangh (JAPCS) was announced on Wednesday. The demands by JAPCS include regularisation of all contractual staff, Covid-19 incentives for its members on Covid duty, equal pay for equal work on the lines of regular staff and health insurance benefits of the state government during covid-19.
Talking to TOI, joint secretary of JAPCS Santosh Kumar said, “Four of our members who were on Covid duty passed away since the outbreak of the pandemic. One among the four, a nurse, was on her way to a village for immunization drive and died in a road accident, but her next of kin wasn’t given benefits by the state government because she was a contractual employee.”
Notably, the employees are working at the health department’s various wings, including NRHM, NVBDCP, JSACS, NCD, RNTCP, RBSK among others, and are playing a vital role in Covid-19 management.
Veena Singh, secretary of the ANM-GNM association; a wing under JAPCS, said, “We have been working for more than 10 years now, but there has been no pay revision or benefits for working on Covid duty. If any of us die, the state government simply disowns us. A regular lab technician is paid Rs 60,000 as salary, whereas our lab technicians are paid Rs 12-15,000 for the same amount of work. Is this fair?”
The protesters also held a symbolic strike on Tuesday which hit the sample collection and testing drive across the state. No sample was collected at Ranchi sadar hospital for nearly three hours on Wednesday.
On being contacted, state National Health Mission MD Ravishankar Shukla said, “We are continuing our talks with the contractual employees and the state government is considering their demands and it will be communicated to them in the next fortnight. Meanwhile, government has asked them to continue their services as we are in the middle of a pandemic.