Permanent jobs: 29 lady health workers granted bail

SUKKUR/KARACHI:

The Anti-Terrorism Court of Sukkur granted bail on Wednesday to 29 Lady Health Workers (LHWs) for staging sit-ins and blocking the Indus Highway when they were demanding permanent jobs instead of working on contract. The court granted bail against surety bonds of Rs25,000 each.

Meanwhile, Sindh Assembly deputy speaker Shehla Raza said that the Pakistan Peoples Party, as per its manifesto, will hire 300,000 more of these door-to-door health workers. Addressing the participants of a dialogue on policy on reproductive health organised by Lead-Pakistan and the Packard Foundation on Wednesday, she said that all those health workers, already inducted but yet to be given permanent jobs, would be processed by June.

“In accordance with the 18th Amendment, the federal health responsibilities will be transferred to the province in the next few months and these will also include the LHWs,” she said.

Referring to the opposition members who protested with the LHWs earlier, Raza said, “These are the people who remained in power for nine years but did nothing to regularise 1.5 million LHWs”.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2011.