Five more of the striking 108 services staff, who are on fast, were rushed to the hospital after they took ill on Thursday. Four of them were taken to the hospital on Wednesday.
The agitation by members of the Arogya Kavacha (108) Ambulance Employees Sangha at Freedom Park, which entered the seventh day on Thursday, saw about 90 people joining the sixty members already on hunger strike. The drivers and the paramedical staff who have come from various districts of the State have been camping at the venue.
However, the government has refused to make any commitment to their demands, which include regularisation of services and termination of contracts with GVK EMRI, the private agency that runs the 108 services. N.H. Paramashiva, one of the office-bearers of the sangha said, “We have toiled day in and day out and each of us have saved scores of lives in the State through our ambulance services. Today, nobody is enquiring about our condition. But we will continue our agitation till the government turns sensitive to our demands.”
