Thankless job: Paramedics protest in Jhang

FAISALABAD: Paramedical staff of the Jhang District Headquarters Hospital on Sunday staged a protest demonstration and threatened to boycott the polio vaccination drive if their services were not regularised. They also boycotted work at the hospital, causing inconvenience for a large number of patients and their families. The protesters gathered at the hospital and staged a sit-in there. Talking to newsmen, Jhang Paramedical Alliance president Muhammad Ramazan said that paramedics had been working for public welfare for many years but the government was unwilling to regularise their services. He said the government should acknowledge their services. He said that there were 13 rural dispensaries, 11 rural health centres, 58 basic health units and three tehsil headquarters hospitals across the district. “We will stop working in these places and paralyse the Health Department in Jhang if our demands are not accepted. The government should listen to us,” he threatened. Ramazan said that grade IV employees should be promoted and services of contractual employees should be also made permanent.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2014.