Mobile clinic staff demand pay increase

The Statesman, 18th April, 2008

Statesman News Service,BHUBANESWAR, April. 18: Doctors and staff of mobile health units functioning in the backward KBK districts ( erstwhile undivided Koraput-Bolangir-Kalahandi) threatened to go on leave en mass if their demands were not fulfilled by the government.Talking to reporters here today general secretary of the KBK Mobile Health Unit Employees Association, Dr Debabrata Barik said that since 1996 they have all been put on contract and their salary has not been revised."A total of 500 employees are engaged in the mobile health units which serve the remote backward pockets of the state and yet the government remains apathetic," he alleged.There are 96 such mobile units and each has a staff of five including doctors, attendants, drivers and pharmacists.Dr Barik said they were under a contractual payment of Rs 8200 per month while the pharmacists get Rs 4000, attendant Rs 3700 and driver Rs 2150 per month. "These need to be revised and we should be at par with government employees," he said. The other major demand is the regularise the appointments rather than continue with the contract system. "After all there are scores of vacancies in government run hospitals and health care centres," he noted.