Staff strike hits ‘Dial 108’ ambulance service
CHANDIGARH/AMRITSAR: Patients across the state suffered as most of the ambulances under the government-run ‘Dial 108’ scheme remained off the road due to a 12-hour strike by its employees on Wednesday. As many as 1,160 employees (drivers and emergency medical technicians of EMTs) of the service were on strike from 8am to 8pm against the private company Ziqitza Healthcare Limited (GHL) which operates the ambulance, over long duty hours.
The employees are demanding eight-hour duty instead of the existing 12, and rollback of termination and transfer orders of employees who protested in 2014 against the company. “We have also not been issued increment for five years and our salary arrives with delay. It’s July 11 today, and we haven’t received our salaries yet,” said Bikramjeet Singh Saini, national president of Jeewan Rakshak Bhartiya Ambulance Karamchari Federation. There are 240 such ambulances in Punjab; four were deployed for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally in Malout.
“We are getting only Rs 8,000 a month and do 12-hour duty. We placed our genuine demands before officers of the state health department several times, but the company has been given a free hand to exploit us,” said Saini.
He said the federation is meeting with National Health Mission (NHM) state director Varun Roojam. “If our demands are not met, we will go on an indefinite strike and stop all ambulance services in north India,” he threatened.
Project head of the service, S Mukherjee, however, claimed that only around 40 ambulances were off the road due to the strike. “Till 2 pm, we refused 60 emergency cases due to non-availability of ambulances,” he said, but refused to give figures of attended patients. He said it is not possible for the company to accept the demands. “We will recruit new staff if the current staff continues with stubborn behaviour. They will have to do 12-hour duty as one ambulance attends only 2-3 patients daily. We are giving them increments; salary has been released on Wednesday,” he said.
Health minister Brahm Mohindra, when contacted, said the government has “hardly any role” as the issue is between the employees and the company. “I appeal to the staff to sort out issues amicably without disturbing the ambulance services.”