The service delivery (SD) staff of the National Health Mission (NHM), Meghalaya, have decided to roll back on their indefinite strike, which was called only yesterday, in favour of a ‘pen-down strike’.
The decision was taken today realising that their roles are essential to healthcare provision in the state and a full-blown strike would hurt the sick and needy.
“The services provided by the service delivery staff are essential to the people of the state and, as such, the general population must not be deprived of their basic rights to avail such services,” a press release today stated. “Though we are facing a rough time with the irrational rationalization (of their salaries), which has affected all of us emotionally and also has demoralized us, we being healthcare workers with a heart to serve have to keep the people’s needs first.”
The pen-down strike will see SD staff refuse to “submit reports” until their demands are met by the NHM Meghalaya Mission Director.
Rationalisation was necessary because staff with similar qualifications and years of service were drawing different amounts of remuneration in NHM. This can be attributed to the merger and dissolution of various vertical programmes societies in the health sector since 2016.
However, service delivery staff are unhappy with the manner in which the rationalisation has been carried out, arguing that it is unfair for the programme management staff to have had their salaries rationalised quicker than those of the SD staff. NHM has argued that there are only some 300-odd PM staff but nearly 2,000 SD staff.
They also claim that it is unfair that SD staff remuneration will still be tied to qualifications as well as experience; such categorisation does not exist for PM staff. The draft rationalisation also disappointed SD staff because there is no mention of seniority, procedure of promotion if any, etc.
