Sacked Sanjeevani employees on warpath

GUWAHATI: At least 140 employees of Assam's village health outreach programme, Sanjeevani, suffered a major blow ahead of the festive season as they were terminated allegedly without any prior notice, prompting them to gherao the '104 health service' head office in the city's Bamunimaidam area on Tuesday.
According to the agitators, health officials had called the former for a meeting in the morning and told them that they were sacked.
Besides the state government, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the Health Management and Research Institute (HMRI) are the partners in the project that was launched amid much fanfare in January.
The Sanjeevani project is also integrated with the Health Helpline, SARATHI 104, and other existing public health systems to disseminate information and ensure round-the-clock healthcare for the beneficiaries.
As part of the programme, at least 80 mobile health units, equipped with laboratory technicians, pharmacists, paramedics and drivers, used to visit remote areas once a month to conduct medical check-ups of people who otherwise had no access to regular healthcare centres.
"We were among some 800 educated youths outsourced by the state government. We got our appointment letters in January. Last week, we received another appointment letter from HMRI. Surprisingly, on Monday, 140 workers of the project were asked to quit. The officials cited funds deficit as the reason," said Dhiraj Medhi, a laboratory technician.
The aggrieved workers accused the project heads of indulging in corruption and said though the project had aimed at improving the rural health scenraio, the mobile health units were yet to receive sufficient logistics and medicines.
"Most of the mobile healthcare units neither have proper medical equipment nor medicines for distribution. Most of the units don't have malaria kits and hemoglobin test boxes. Though funds have been sanctioned for the project, the units lacked basic medical facilities," said Dhanjit Das, a pharmacist involved in the project.
However, officials involved with project said some of the employees were asked to go because their contract had expired.
"Some of them were hired even before the project was launched officially. Besides, it was difficult to continue with all of them with authorities releasing only 50 per cent of the earmarked funds," said a senior HMRI official.
When the project was launched, the government had said the mobile units would be equipped with medicines to treat chronic diseases such as epilepsy, hyper-tension, asthma, TB, Malaria and pre and post-natal ailments.