Unpaid health workers ratchet up protests

Nine lady health workers threaten to burn themselves on Saturday.

HYDERABAD: After four months without pay, nearly 26,000 staffers of the government’s family planning and primary healthcare unit have decided to protest. 

These healthcare workers are paid Rs7,000 a month and they are on contract, meaning their jobs are not permanent.

Starting Tuesday, thousands of them went on hunger strikes and sit-ins in cities from Dadu to Tando Muhammad Khan. They are organised on a platform called the All Pakistan Lady Health Workers Employees Association.

“[We] passed Ramazan and Eid completely broke,” said the association’s Bushra Arain. She went so far as to threaten to set herself with eight other people on fire on Saturday if they were not paid. “Besides me, five lady health workers, two drivers and a field programme officer will burn themselves to death on Saturday in Shikarpur,” she warned.

The staffers argue that as long as they are on contract, their salaries will be stuck but if they were given permanent jobs or regularised, they would then be eligible for promotions and increments.

Haleema Laghari, who represents the staff in Sindh, led a siege outside MNA Shamshad Bachani’s house in Tando Allahyar district. She said that the lack of funds were preventing the workers from doing their job in the flood-affected areas. “The programme is not paying for fuel, repairs and maintenance of vehicles,” she said. “It’s the health supervisors and district account supervisors who pay from their pockets.”

Each lady health supervisor, who commands between 30 and 60 lady health workers, is provided a Suzuki pick-up.

According to Laghari, those who paid for fuel and maintenance for over a year were not reimbursed. “Working in rural areas is already a challenge that becomes more difficult by the displacement of people and the remote locations of the population,” she said. “To make matters worse, we have to pay for logistics even without being paid ourselves.”

The protests gained political support in June when MNA Marvi Memon decided to support the cause. The result was fruitful as the federal government asked for three months for implement their demands.

“While we are entrusted for the healthcare of millions of families, our own children are forsaken by the government,” said Saeeda Shaheen, who led one protest. The staff staged a three-hour long sit-in outside the Hyderabad Press Club on Wednesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2011.