Hyderabad, November 11: Medical services were paralysed in the state today with the contract employees of 104 ambulance and mobile health services went on strike.
The 104 contract employees today struck work across the state demanding that the state government take over the 104 service entirely and regularise their jobs with salaries prescribed by the Pay Revision Commission (PRC).
According to officials sources, medical and ambulance services provided through 104 services came to a halt in nearly 70 per cent of the remote areas including tribal areas. About 365 ambulance services were being operated with 3,500 contract workers to provide basic medical and ambulance services where there is no decent hospital or primary healthcare centre in the state. Though there were reports of people suffering due to the strike, the officials brushed off these reports as rumours. They assured that despite absence of contract staff, services were being operated as usual with the help of ANMs and other medical staff except in a very few places.
The 104 Contract Employees Union president T Jayaprakash Reddy said that the government is not responding to their genuine demands unmindful of people’s sufferings. He demanded that the government which is providing 95 per cent of funds towards functioning of 104 services, can take over the entire project and directly operate the services instead of outsourcing to private companies.
The employees, who were appointed through outsourcing, were also demanding that the contract system should be abolished and their jobs should be regularised providing salaries as per the PRC recommendations.
–Agencies