7 hours Ago
Several hundred health workers under a government project locked all the gates of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) around 3:30pm today to press home their demands arrears payments and making their jobs permanent. As a result, officials and staffers have been confined inside the building, officials and the protesting health workers said. The health workers, appointed under the Covid-19 Emergency Response and Pandemic Preparedness (ERPP) Project, have been staging demonstration at DGHS from Sunday.
They staged a sit in programme on Sunday, and began a hunger strike from Monday. Around 3:30pm, they locked all entrance gates of the DGHS, as they did not get any assurances from the authority, said Abdur Rahman, one of the health workers. "We are all confined and we cannot leave the office," a director of the DGHS told The Daily Star at 5:45pm.
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck Bangladesh in early 2020, the government initially recruited 393 health workers to strengthen healthcare services, particularly in testing and emergency response. Later, more medical officers, nurses, and technologists were appointed under the ERPP project, raising the total workforce to 1,154. At present, 1,004 health workers are employed under the project, two protesters told this correspondent.
"But we have not been paid since January. Besides, the project is scheduled to end in June this year. Therefore, we want assurance that our jobs will be made permanent," Main Uddin, one of the protesting health workers, told this correspondent on Sunday.
An official of the ERPP project said the workers had been receiving their salaries from World Bank funding, which ended in December last year. "So, they are not getting salaries from January. We, the project authority, and the DGHS suggested that their salaries be paid from the government's allocated funds for the project until June this year, when the project will end formally," the official said, wishing to remain unnamed.
The matter is still pending with the finance ministry, he added. Several hundred health workers under a government project locked all the gates of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) around 3:30pm today to press home their demands arrears payments and making their jobs permanent. As a result, officials and staffers have been confined inside the building, officials and the protesting health workers said.
The health workers, appointed under the Covid-19 Emergency Response and Pandemic Preparedness (ERPP) Project, have been staging demonstration at DGHS from Sunday. They staged a sit in programme on Sunday, and began a hunger strike from Monday. Around 3:30pm, they locked all entrance gates of the DGHS, as they did not get any assurances from the authority, said Abdur Rahman, one of the health workers.
"We are all confined and we cannot leave the office," a director of the DGHS told The Daily Star at 5:45pm. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck Bangladesh in early 2020, the government initially recruited 393 health workers to strengthen healthcare services, particularly in testing and emergency response. Later, more medical officers, nurses, and technologists were appointed under the ERPP project, raising the total workforce to 1,154.
At present, 1,004 health workers are employed under the project, two protesters told this correspondent. "But we have not been paid since January. Besides, the project is scheduled to end in June this year.
Therefore, we want assurance that our jobs will be made permanent," Main Uddin, one of the protesting health workers, told this correspondent on Sunday. An official of the ERPP project said the workers had been receiving their salaries from World Bank funding, which ended in December last year. "So, they are not getting salaries from January.
We, the project authority, and the DGHS suggested that their salaries be paid from the government's allocated funds for the project until June this year, when the project will end formally," the official said, wishing to remain unnamed. The matter is still pending with the finance ministry, he added..
