Children's hospital staff seek to meet PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Lady Hardinge Medical College and associated hospitals on Saturday to lay the foundation stone of redevelopment plan of the campus, which was announced in 2007.

Workers’ union of Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital, an associated hospital of LHMC, will highlight the fact that in a season of acute dengue spread, it does not even have medicines like paracetamol in its pharmacy.

Questioning the new plan, they said an earlier programme has still to deliver its benefits.
Representatives of the union will submit a memorandum to the PM to resolve long pending issues related to the hospital and employees.

They told the hospital administration that if they are not allowed to meet him, they will hold a demonstration. It may halt hospital’s work for the first half.

S S Negi, general secretary of the union said the hospital, one of the prestigious institutes in the field of child healthcare, has itself become sick. There is an acute shortage of medicines, he added.

Diagnostic and medical equipment worth crores of rupees remain unused and abandoned and two out of the total three operation theaters are lying non-functional for more than 12 years due to shortage of staff. It is common to allot one bed to three to four children.

The union members condemned the LHMC authorities for spending lakhs of rupees for the foundation stone laying ceremony. They said another issue is regarding 24 temporary workers and eight daily wage employees. They have worked in the hospital for 17 and 10 years respectively.

Based on a Supreme Court verdict, the department of personnel and training had issued an order to regularise all employees who have served in a government set-up for 10 years. But the LHMC authorities are yet to make these employees regular.

An earlier project in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency had come to operation in 2000. Posts sanctioned under it, especially clerical and group D, are still to be filled.