Thursday, 20 February 2025 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The continuing work boycott agitation by the sanitation workers has been negatively impacting the hygiene standards at the OPD, Emergency and OT of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC). Since February 16, these workers have been refusing to do their cleaning duties in protest against non-clearance of salaries for the past two months. Determined to continue their stir, the workers stated on Wednesday that they would resume work only after their pending salaries are cleared.
Consequently, the hygiene conditions have deteriorated, posing a potential risk of infection to the patients. To break the sanitation deadlock, the hospital administration has been regularly conducting discussions with the State administration so as to ensure that the pending salaries of the sanitation workers is cleared at the earliest.
It is learnt from the hospital sources that the problem centred round a faulty tender issued to the company responsible for sanitation services at the hospital, resulting in the salary holdup for the workers involved.
The sanitation workers looked resolved to carry on with their stir of boycotting work. “No one seems concerned about our plight. We have been going without pay for two months. And no State official or MLA has cared to speak to us,” said a sanitation worker Suman despairingly.
Another sanitation worker Mithlesh echoed the same. “We continued with our work for the past two months without being paid salaries. Now, things are grave as the non-payment of salaries is affecting us financially. We will keep boycotting duty till the authorities consider clearing our held-up salaries,” he warned.
Many sanitation workers The Pioneer talked to have demanded the tender to be reissued to a new outsourcing company for sanitation services at GDMC along with payment of their suspended salaries.
Queried over the worsening hygiene at the premier, State-run health facility in Dehradun, the deputy medical superintendent Dr N S Bisht said they were indeed worried. “Things are not being cleaned for the past four days,” he said, adding that the hospital administration has been holding regular meetings with the State administration to end the salary holdups for the past one and half months.
He further expressed the hope that the sanitation workers might receive their salaries for one month in a day or two.
Additionally, to resolve the continuing logjam, the hospital administration has issued a new tender for hiring a different company to manage sanitation services. It is expected that this tender will be finalised soon, providing a permanent solution to the problem.
