THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Members of the COVID brigade who had joined duty at government-run health centres on a contractual basis since the beginning of the pandemic, have been staging protests in various centres against the decision to terminate their service without paying their dues.
They are being terminated from service in batches after the Centre discontinued its contribution of 50% of their salaries and most of them will lose their jobs by October 30. The brigade members have decided to intensify their protest against the state government's sudden decision and demand payment of dues.
In Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital, all 410 members will stay away from duty and stage a protest on Monday. Similar protests will be held in other medical college hospitals as well.
On September 30, the government decided to not renew the contract of close to 20,000 members including doctors, nurses and attenders. An improvement in the pandemic situation and lack of funds from the Centre have been cited for the decision. But the decision came as a shock to the members.
"We have been serving Covid patients in medical college hospitals for the last 1.5 years. There were times when the permanent employees stayed away due to fear of catching Covid and hospitals depended on our service. But many of us came to know about the decision to terminate our service when we turned up for duty," said Rajeev V, an attender who lost the job with 150 others in the first batch of retrenchment.
He complained that the government owed each of them in his grade close to Rs 60,000 and the hospital authorities were evasive when asked about salary dues. A grade 2 staff like Rajeev gets nearly Rs 23,000 a month. Almost half the money is the contribution from the Centre.