SRINAGAR: Amid the ongoing strike by National Health Mission (NHM) employees, the Directorate of Health Services Kashmir has instructed hospitals and other healthcare institutions to rearrange available staff and duty schedules to ensure uninterrupted delivery of essential patient-care services.
The Directorate has asked Medical Superintendents, Block Medical Officers, and heads of institutions to ensure that all available regular staff are present and appropriately deployed.
The institutions have specifically been asked to maintain adequate manpower in critical and patient-care areas, including outpatient departments (OPDs), inpatient departments (IPDs), emergency services, labour rooms, operation theatres, diagnostic services and pharmacies.
The Directorate has also authorized adjustment of duty rosters wherever required to maintain manpower during the period of absence of NHM personnel.
Institutions have been directed to immediately report any shortage of manpower that affects essential services to the Directorate for intervention.
The instructions provide a clearer indication of the operational impact of the strike, which has entered its second week after NHM employees extended their agitation by another 72 hours from September 15.
More than 12,000 NHM employees are participating in the agitation across Jammu and Kashmir, according to their association. The employees are demanding pay parity, a comprehensive policy for job security and regularisation, and social-security benefits including EPF, ESI and insurance coverage.
Reports from different districts have indicated varying effects on health services. In Anantnag, around 700 NHM employees were reported to have remained off duty, with several hospitals operating with limited services.
The strike also involves personnel working under different NHM programmes, including the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme. Employees associated with the programme have said its functioning has been affected during the agitation.
Meanwhile, NHM employees have extended the strike after talks with the government failed to produce a written assurance or a time-bound resolution of their demands. The agitation is continuing across the Union Territory. [KNT]
