NHM contract staff to strike work today

Contractual employees working under the National Health Mission (NHM) will be stage a protest across the country on Thursday to draw the attention of the government to fulfil their long-standing demand for equal pay.

The contract employees want pay-scale on a par with the permanent staff and secure employment.

There are around 30,000 health workers, including doctors, nurses, lab technicians and hospital attendants working under the health mission in the state. They include 22,000
contract employees and 8,000 outsourced employees, who will boycott work on Thursday.

The employees on strike will go in a rally from Gandhi Statue near Maurya Hotel to the health directorate at Anand Rao Circle.

The Karnataka Janaarogya Chaluvali has said that the state government is pursuing a hire and fire policy, refusing to comply with the Supreme Court-mandated equal pay for equal work and pushing contractual workers to the brink.

In view of the strike, the Health department has directed all district health officers (DHO) and district-level officers to relocate the regular staff to needy hospitals.

The DHOs have issued suitable directions to medical officers and other regular staff to be in the headquarters and see to it that all hospitals function as usual.