Jharkhand Health minister’s assurance fails, strike continues in SNMMCH

The indefinite strike by outsourcing workers against the state government's curfew order at Shahid Nirmal Mahto Medical College Hospital (SNMMCH) Dhanbad continued for the second day on Saturday as Health Minister Banna Gupta's assurance to withdraw the government's letter failed.

On Friday, the Minister of Health ordered the chief inspector of SNMMCH Dr. AK Barnbal to withdraw the reduction order when Dhanbad sadar MLA Raj Sinha met him in Ranchi and apprised him of the plight faced by patients in the hospital due to the indefinite strike by the outsourcing staff. 

All 428 outsourced employees of the SNMMCH have been on an indefinite strike since Friday morning in protest against the Ministry of Health's order to lay off 121 employees from Monday (May 21).

Striking employees said that if 121 employees who have worked for the past 10 years are laid off, (428) would also not be working. Dhanbad sadar MLA Raj Sinha also provided moral support to the striking staff today and sat with them for more than three hours in the morning to protest at the hospital gate.

“I am surprised and appalled that even after the assurance given by the Minister of Health after receiving details from the concerned authorities of the Ministry of Health and the management of the hospital, the withdrawal letter has not yet been withdrawn. The head of the hospital said he had not received any written order. There is chaos in the hospital and patients are returning unattended,” said Sinha.

Sinha, who went around all the wards in the hospital after the strike, said the helpless patients had to fend for themselves in the absence of the ward boys. "It looks like the government is not interested in running the teaching medical hospital, otherwise about 600 admitted patients would not have been left hanging in the last 48 hours," Sinha said.

After the bandagers' strike, ward boys, and hospital doctors were seen bandaging patients. Meanwhile, the Jharkhand State Medical Staff Association has protested against the reduction of 121 employees. "Patients are suffering because the government has canceled the posts of nurses, ward boys, and anesthesia technicians in hospitals and medical colleges," said Raju Mahto, secretary of the association.