BY TC News Desk
Agartala Dec 13: Housekeeping staffs of Santirbazar district hospital appointed under a private company, NABS have gone on strike for an indefinite period since Tuesday morning.The protesters said they mop and sweep all the wards across the hospital premises every day.
“Despite heavy work, we get only Rs 5,000 a month. Although we were promised Rs 10,000 per month at the time of joining”, alleged the protestors.They added, “At present there are 15 cleaning staff in the Santirbazar hospital including 2 men who only work during the day and 4 of us always remain on duty at the operation theaters. It becomes hard for the rest of us to keep the entire hospital clean”.
Alleging extreme work load the agitating staffs said, “In this little amount of salary and less staffs we are not able to work in three shifts”.Noting the main point of agitation, one of the housekeeping staff said, “With a promise of Rs 10,000 salary mentioned in paper, we were recruited as housekeeping staff. But for many years we were provided only Rs 4,000 each. Last 1 year the salary was increased to Rs 5,000 but that too is not enough to run the family”.
Raising all these allegations, the staffs announced indefinite strike from Tuesday.“We will join work only if our demands are met”, they added.However, till the time of writing the report, the strike continued as no officials of NABS came to meet the agitating employees.On the other hand, the doctors, nurses and other hospital staffs are in tension thinking about the un hygienic and unclean situation that would arise in the hospital in a single day if the housekeeping workers do not work.
