The Covid vaccination drive could hit a roadblock as health workers have decided to resort to go on a strike in a meeting of Swasthya Sanyojak Karmachari Sangh Chhattisgarh after the Government didn’t meet their demands. Organisation’s State President Tarjan Gupta and State Secretary Praveen Dhidhwanshi said health workers working relentlessly without any vacation for the past two years since the advent of Covid-19 pandemic. District officials force them to work on festivals and Government holidays to earn brownie points. Besides the vaccination, they also handle vaccination of pregnant women, infants and treatment of malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy patients. They are also vested with responsibility to implement national and state health programmes at 5,200 sub-health centers and health and wellness centers.

 

So, it would deeply affect all these important health programmes if the 13,500 health conveners, health supervisors, BETO go on strike. Organisation’s state vice president Harish Jaiswal and women wing president Saroj Baghmar said Congress-led Chhattisgarh Government has forgotten about the promises they made to health workers in their election manifesto. Chief Minister and Health Minister couldn’t implement the announcements. Women wing member Ramsheela Sahu and K Rizvi said the proposal of wage discrepancies is pending for years at government level. Their main demands include giving increased pay scale from Rs 2,200 to 2,800, change the designation from rural health convener to rural health assistant officer, appointment of nanny at each sub-health centre on Collector rate, increasing incentive of CHO at Health and Welfare Centers, data entry allowances Rs 5,000 in case of additional work to data entry operators and special Covid allowances to health workers.