Chandigarh: With the concentrated efforts needed to fight the threat caused by the Omicron variant ahead of the State Assembly election, the Punjab government has failed to bring conflicting health workers on board, which has moved away from their Covid task for more than a month.
Election Election Commission (EC) has called a new variant as a challenge to conduct a safe selection in the state where political activities have picked up steps, called for the need to improve monitoring and precautions.
Health experts are worried that there is something left at this time can lead to the wave of the third infection.
In recent weeks, the state has witnessed the uptick in this case, pushing the level of R value where each infection spreads – over an important threshold 1.
Although a worrying trend, the government has not succeeded in resolving the problem of the National Health Mission (NHM) and other medical professionals, including Nurses, even after giving repetitive guarantees and setting deadlines.
Deputy Minister of Punjab O P Soni, which on December 11 has convinced around 12,000 NHM employees to overcome their longpending demand and set a three-day deadline to complete the entire process, failing to fulfill appointments.
NHM employees and Covid volunteers have played an important role in the war against the pandemic and their absence from work has influenced testing, contact contacts and vaccinations in the state.
After maintaining a decent ratio to track more than 20 contacts per case until the end of October, the tracking rate has dropped to 14.
During a seven-day period between 19 to 15 December, contact contacts were even lower than the average country.
In Muktsar, only 1.7 contacts were tracked per case, the number 3.9 in Bathinda, five each in Ludhiana and Mohali.
The test per million population also dropped to 842, which at one point close to 2,000.
The Association of NRHM employees, Punjab (Neap) President Dr.
Inderdeet Singh Rana said all workers until recently wholeheartedly carried out their covid tasks but were forced to take upright steps at this important stage.
“We are left without choice but to strike because the state government fails to provide what we deserve,” Dr.
Rana said.
Soni assured that the government worked to meet the demands of employees.
“The process is on and we hope for positive results in the coming days,” he added.
NHM employees have been fighting for regularization of contractual employees and demanding their inclusion in ‘Punjab protection and Punjab regularization from Bill, 2021’ which was recently framed.
Employees who are not included in the bill, for now, must be given a salary of equivalent to regular employees about the pattern of the Haryana government.
Nurses have also protested problems related to payments and benefits.
The unwanted TIFF during the ongoing pandemic phase, the state government has taken TIFF with health facilities and medical professionals.
The government first locked the horn with private health facilities for the enforcement of the Clinical Act Punjab (Registration & Regulation) Regulations.
After facing many resistance, the government must approve the demands of the Punjab chapter from the Indian medical association.
The state government has also taken a fight with his doctor by cutting down their benefits.