Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Raising a slew of demands including health insurance and better pay, almost 4,500 health workers in Uttarakhand, who are working under the National Health Mission (NHM) on contractual basis, have gone on strike. These workers have been the foot soldiers of the COVID19 vaccination exercise in the state. They declared the strike on June 1 and will boycott their duties till June 6.

The strike is expected to affect the ongoing vaccination campaign at time when the COVID19 cases are on the rise in the hill state and vaccination has dropped. 

Also Read: Uttarakhand faces an uphill task as it tries to reach vaccines to its far flung villages

“For now the strike is till June 6. We are boycotting online and offline work and are following  home isolation. If the government doesn’t meet our demand these days, then we will be compelled to extend the strike,” Poojan Negi, the media incharge of the NHM Contractual Employees Association Uttarakhand, told Gaon Connection. 

The demands include health insurance, financial aid to the families of those who die on duty and arrangement for employment of the dependents, the payment of loyalty bonus that is on hold since 2018, checking salary discrepancy, and increasing the appraisal rate from 5 per cent to 10 per cent.

Also Read: Coronavirus creeps up the Uttarakhand hills; villages in Chamoli and Rudraprayag sealed

“During COVID, from sample collection, testing to vaccination, we have been doing it all. We have been declared ‘Corona warriors’ but that means nothing. Our demands are legitimate,” said Negi.

The ad hoc workers that have gone on strike include doctors, ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwife), and nurses.

Negi further told Gaon Connection, “The Central government has fixed the minimum wages of employees at Rs 18,000 per month. But more than half of the field health workers in the state are getting payments that are much less than this. Our condition is worse than workers on daily wages. Even a mason earns Rs 700 a day in the state.”

Also Read: Sharp rise in COVID19 among children in Uttarakhand

Meanwhile, the COVID situation in the state is at its worst ever.

Since the advent of the pandemic last March, the Himayalan state of Uttarakhand has recorded 6,452 deaths due to COVID19. Of these, 3,828 deaths, or 59 per cent of the total deaths in the hill state so far, have happened in the single month of May 2021.

Also, close to half — 45 per cent — of the total COVID positive cases in the state since March 2020 have also been recorded in May 2021. This data was compiled and shared by the Dehradun-based non-profit Social Development for Communities Foundation (SDCF), which has been tracking the COVID19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

Also Read: 59% of all COVID deaths in Uttarakhand happened in the month of May 2021

Vaccine shortage

Worryingly, there has been a significant drop in the number of vaccinations in the state, as recorded in the Uttarakhand COVID 2021 vaccination tracker of the Dehradun-based non-profit Social Development for Communities Foundation. 

In the month of April, 1,338,530 vaccine doses were administered in the state but the very next month in May, it dropped to 833,149 doses. This despite the fact that the state has begun vaccinating the 18-44 years age group, since May 10.

Adding to the woes is the shortage of vaccines. Last week, on April 29, several vaccination centres that were supposed to vaccinate the 18-44 year age group, remained closed in the state capital Dehradun. 

Also Read: 50% drop in COVID19 vaccination in India in the past month, shows govt’s Co-WIN data

Also, at the Narayanbagad block in Chamoli district there is an acute shortage of vaccines. “Now, we can get vaccinated only on Thursdays and Saturdays,” Mayank Uniyal, 26-years-old,  from Dungri village, told Gaon Connection.

At Pithoragarh, which lies on the border of Nepal, in the village of Dharchula, the vaccination for the 18 to 44 year age group has stopped since May 25.  

“There is only one vaccination centre here, and people have to travel miles from remote villages to get here. And, for the past few days, when people are coming here from afar, they have to return without being inoculated,” Nadeem Parvez, a resident of  Dharchula, told Gaon Connection.

Read this report in Hindi