Healthcare workers’ strike hits pandemic fight in Haveri

HAVERI: The Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education Contractual Employees Association’s indefinite strike has badly affected Haveri’s fight against the pandemic. The district already suffers from an acute shortage of health workers, but now with 518 employees boycotting work, testing has fallen and even the semblance of control the authorities had over the spread of the virus is unravelling.
However, Dr Rajendra Doddamani, district health officer, insisted the strike has not affected treatment of patients in the district.“Our regular employees are working round-the-clock to ensure timely treatment to all Covid patients,” Doddamani said.
The boycotting employees, who include Ayush doctors, nurses, data entry operators, lab technicians, ambulance drivers, counsellors, supervisors, ANMs, and health programme supervisors, used to shoulder about 50% of the Covid-19 burden. Now, regular staffs are feeling the heat. The district has not been able to meet testing targets.
“Our members have been boycotting work for the past week,” said Vasantkumar Goudra, president of the district unit of the contractual employees association. “Many Covid wards are without doctors, nurses, and Group D. Regular staffs are facing a heavy workload and they are unable to provide proper treatment to patients.”
Goudra said the department doesn’t even have an ambulance driver to ferry Covid patients to hospitals and many people are yet to get their Covid test reports. “Despite several appeals to the government, our demands are not being considered. We will not withdraw the strike until the government considers our demands,” Goudra said. They are demanding pay and benefits on par with regular staff.