Voicing discontent: Nursing staff holds protest, demand regularisation of services

GILGIT:

Scores of nurses held a protest rally in Gilgit town on Tuesday and demanded regularisation of their services.

The protest coincided with the launch of an anti-polio drive in the region. On Monday, nursing staff in seven districts of Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) had announced they would be boycotting the drive. As a result, more than 70 nurses, most of them women, took part in the rally to pressurise the government into accepting their demands.

Protesters held banners and placards demanding an end to ‘the injustice against nursing staff’ and passed through the main roads of Gilgit city before staging a sit-in outside the chief minister’s office and the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly building. They chanted slogans against the government and demanded their services be regularised.



Nearly 1,500 nurses across G-B were supposed to be regularised in June 2012. However, more than a year has passed and they are yet to be given the status. “We are deprived of the financial benefits and job security available to regular staff,” said one of the protesters.

The rally dispersed peacefully after authorities assured them of settling the issue within 10 days.

Vaccination drive

A polio vaccination drive started in G-B despite the boycott. The drive’s in-charge, Dr Muhammad Iqbal told The Express Tribune the health department had sufficient resources and workforce to conduct it without the nursing staff.

“We have arranged alternate teams in order to complete the drive on schedule,” said Iqbal, dispelling the notion that the boycott might adversely affect it.

Nearly 200,000 children will be administered polio vaccines during the ongoing drive. A total of 1,109 mobile teams and 279 non-mobile teams have been constituted across seven districts of G-B and control rooms have been established in key areas to coordinate with the staff and the public.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2013.