Health workers call of indefinite strike after CMs assurance

Ranchi: Following assurance from state government over 12,000 contractual employees of state health department withdrew their strike on Friday evening. The withdrawal of strike by Jharkhand Anubandhit Para Chikitsakarmi Sangh comes after state government agreed to most of their demands and assured them of resolving the rest after holding consultations with various departments.
The demands of protesting health workers were accepted after a high level meeting was convened at Project building under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Friday afternoon and after the decisions were communicated to the health workers association they decided to call of the strike.
According to sources in state health department Health Minister Banna Gupta was instrumental in getting the strike called off in a short period of time as he first met a delegation of contractual employees at his residence in the morning and heard their grievances, soon after that Banna contacted officials of health department and co-ordinated a meeting with Chief Minister for addressing the issue.
Addressing a press conference after the strike was called off Banna said: “I thank all health workers for calling off their strike and standing with us in the fight against Covid 19. We have taken cognizance of their demands and a few including providing insurance cover to all health workers has already been accepted and a few others will be addressed at the earliest after a high level committee submits its report to government over the demands.”
Banna added: “You need to pamper a family member if he/she get angry for any reason. So all contractual employees are my family members and if they aren’t happy over anything we need to sort things out by talking to them.”
State President of Jharkhand Rajya Anubandh Karamchari sangh (NRHM) Meera Kumari said: “We are calling off our strike as we have been given a written assurance by state government on our demands.”
The protesting health workers had demanded regularisation and equal pay for equal work to all contractual employees, one month’s salary as covid-19 incentive, increase in Maternal leave and regular leaves, compensation to kin of contractual employees in case of death and to address irregularities in salary and Provident fund contributions.
“State government has accepted to extend maternal leave from three to six months and all health workers have been covered under the insurance scheme for health workers deployed in covid-19 duty. Apart from that government has agreed to study the model of other states to provide covid-19 incentive to contractual health care workers. On equal pay for equal work and regularisation, state government has agreed to set up a committee and take a decision soon so we have decided to withdraw the indefinite strike which was scheduled from Saturday,” said Kumari.
Around 12000 contractual employees including nurses, Lab Technicians, operation theatre technicians, pharmacist and other clinical staff are deployed across the state and are working at various state healthcare facilities and are also deployed on Covid-19 duty.