BENGALURU: Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr K Sudhakar has assured that the State government will soon revise the wages of over 25,000 contractual and outsourced employees of the health department, National Health Mission and medical education department.
He was speaking after meeting over 5,000 workers of health and medical education department, who were protesting at Freedom Park in Bengaluru on Thursday. The employees withdrew their protest after the health minister’s assurance. “We will resume our protest on July 15 if our demands are not met within three days,” warned protesters’ association president Vishwaradhya H Y.
Dr Sudhakar said the government is committed to protect the interests of all workers but there are some legal and technical difficulties in meeting certain demands. The government will take a comprehensive view of the issues and try to fulfill as many demands as possible including implementation of Srinivasachari Report, health insurance coverage, 10 days paid leave per year, and maternity and paternity benefits, he said.
On the contract workers’ demand to make their wages on par with permanent employees, Sudhakar said, “The Union and State governments have taken up 49 programmes jointly for a given period of time. Hence it is difficult to make them permanent employees. However, I assure that all efforts will be made to increase the wages”, he said.
The minister added, “Karnataka is one of the leading states in the entire country in terms of providing healthcare service and we must make efforts to improve it further. People have placed a lot of trust in the public healthcare system.”