TENKASI: There might not be any Deepavali revelry this year for the 30 temporary health staff who helped the Government District Headquarters Hospital (GHQH) in Tenkasi tide over the Covid-19 crisis.
The staff, who were mostly posted in RT-PCR testing lab and Operation Theatres (OT), said they had not received salary for the past five to six months.
"We have completed diploma courses such as nursing, OT technician or nursing assistant. Some of us have even graduated. When the district administration was searching for temporary health staff to handle the pandemic, we eagerly came forward even though we knew that we would be underpaid and be more prone to the infection. A paltry Rs 8,000 was fixed as our monthly salary. To justify the low salary, some of us were 'recruited' as security guard but employed in labs and OTs," said a female staff requesting anonymity.
She also said these temporary staff played a major role in treating Covid cases and testing swab samples from across the district. Another staff member, who was recently terminated with four months' salary pending, said the hospital administration told him that the State government's and Collector's funds to handle Covid were stopped to the hospital.
"Nearly nine staff were terminated without salary recently. Now the hospital administration has told a few staff that they will collect some money from the GHQH doctors and pay their salaries. I am fed up of contacting the GHQH administration for my pending salary, and have joined a private hospital to meet my family expenses," he added.
GHQH Superintendent Jesline and Joint Director (Health) Venkatarengan said the hospital administration was working towards disbursal of salary to the temporary staff. "We are now receiving funds from the National Health Mission towards their salary," said Venkatarengan.
Collector S Gopala Sundararaj said the Collector's fund was not stopped to this hospital. When contacted by TNIE, State Health Secretary Radhakrishnan assured to address the issue at the earliest.