NHM employees extend their strike till Jan 24

Srinagar, Jan 18:National Health Mission (NHM) employees on Thursday extended their protest cum strike for further 144hrs from Jan 19- Jan 24, saying that they won’t call of the strike until the government come up with the proper road map for their regularization.
Spokesperson announced the decision at Press Enclave Srinagar where the NHM employees are protesting to press for their demands from last 30 days.
Rouf said that “we would like to see the order of the 4 member committee which the concerned Minster has framed for NHM Employees as informed by him in the assembly.”
“We would like to inform the general public that Minister is totally wrong and is misleading the assembly as well as general public through media, as no such new committee has been framed,” he said.
He said that the committee which was framed earlier in the month of March after 15 days strike of NHM employees has already submitted their reports to the department and no action till date has been taken by the government on the same report.
“Besides this, we also have not received any copy of the report as of now which seems to be ambiguous to us. If government fails to address our genuine issues at an earliest we will intensify our protest by each coming day. Besides this our apprehension is that Mission Director, NHM is not presenting the true picture of the current situation, which leads to wrong interpretation of things before the government,” he said.
Notably, the demands of NHM Employees are being supported by many well-known Associations like Employees Joint Action Committee (Q), Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK), J&K Health & Family Welfare Employees Confederation, Society of Consultant Doctors Kashmir, and Government Pharmacist Association Kashmir, J&K Health & Technical Employees Association and J&K Doctors Coordination Committee, Employees Coordination Committee Government Medical College.
Rouf said that these associations are groups of Intellectual, Professionals, Think Tanks, Academicians, and Scholar’s etc and they cannot support any in-genuine demands or support anyone blindly. “This shows that NHM Employees really deserve what they are asking for from the Government,” he added.
Pertinently, the protest-cum-strike of NHM employees started on December 20 for 72 hours, which they later extended.
Notably, the protest of NHM employees has badly hit the patient-care in peripheral hospitals, with patients alleging it to be reason of immense hardships.