Their strike is targeting the medical staffers who are paid much more than the contractual employees.
The health services in Delhi could get crippled this week with more than 5,000 National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) contractual workers going on an indefinite strike, starting Monday.
The Prime Minister's ambitious health programmes — Mission Indradhanush, for kids, and the Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA), for high-risk pregnant women — will be affected the most as both schemes are solely managed by the NRHM workers.
The health workers have demanded that the Delhi government maintain a common standard while paying salaries. Their slogan for the strike, 'Same Work Same Pay', is targeting the medical staffers who are paid much more than the contractual employees.
The contractual employees are deployed in various mohalla clinics, and government hospitals, besides solely managing many of the health schemes. For instance, the government programme for Tuberculosis is solely handled by these workers. There are 500 DOT centre in the Capital and each centre caters to a population of 100,000.
"We understand that patients' health is important but we are helpless. We had gone on a token strike on December 23 but the government did not pay any attention to our issues. We are left with no other option. The government is busy with elections in other states. The health structure has been completely ignored," said a senior medical officer at one of the mohalla clinics.
Other than that, these workers also handle PMSMA, aimed at reducing maternal and infant mortality rates through safe pregnancies and deliveries, provides free antenatal care to about 3 crore women across the country. The nationwide programme to detect and prevent high-risk pregnancies provides "assured, comprehensive and quality" antenatal care to pregnant women on the ninth day of every month.
Also, Mission Indradhanush, launched on December 25 in 2014, which covers all the children unvaccinated or partially vaccinated by 2020, is also handled by these contractual workers.
Not only this, more than 15,000 resident doctors from the Delhi government-run hospitals will be going on a mass leave on January 17, to protest against the non-implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
Dr Pankaj Solanki, President of the Federation of Residents Doctors Association (FORDA), said: "The government is biased. All other medical officers are getting benefits of the 7th Pay Commission but the government is not thinking about us. We are going on a mass leave and will wait for the government to take some decision."
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