Various employees working under National Health Mission have been on strike from 20th December 2017 and are demanding to resolve various issues pending from a long time and today they extended their strike call till January 24th saying that till their demands won’t be accepted ,they will not call off the strike. However the strike of these employees which include employees from
National health Mission, j & k State AIDS control society, and Revised National Tuberculosis control programme have badly affected the health care in both rural and urban areas.
Many district and sub district hospitals and particularly Primary Health Centers across the valley are suffering due to the lack of NHM
Doctors who are on strike. Some patients from far flung areas are even complaining of not even getting proper treatment at hospitals because most of the doctors in these hospitals are recruited through the scheme of National Health Mission.
An employee working under NHM said that “they have been doing their duties from past ten years and despite working very hard, government is not ready to accept our demands. Even during the unrest of 2016 we worked day and night and used to walk hundreds of kilometers to provide better facilities to the patients”.
Despite repeated calling Director Health services was not available to take calls.
Another employee, Shabir Ahmad, working in the RNTCP said that “working in a tuberculosis section is very sometimes very dangerous
and has even some employees have lost their lives working in these sections and government has not been able to compensate them, we want that our jobs should be regularized as our future is at stake”.
Pertinently, government has formed a four member committee to look into the matter of the agitating employees. However Minister for health services Mr Bali Bhagat could not be contacted for the same. (KNB)