Praja Arogya Vedika (PAV) has appealed to Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to regularise the services of medical and health personnel who were recruited on a contract basis to work at hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a letter to the Chief Minister on Wednesday, PAV general secretary T. Kameswara Rao and president M.V. Ramanaiah sought re-employment of all medical and health personnel, who have been removed from duty, after the decline of COVID-19 cases in the State. While commending the State government for taking immediate steps to improve medical health services to curb the pandemic, they said that the contract staff had rendered yeoman services when the pandemic was at its peak. Their contribution towards checking the spread of COVID-19 was commendable, they said.
The PAV leaders noted that the experience of the world community shows that there is a need to strengthen the medical and health services in the wake of warnings from experts, doctors and scientists that a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was likely in India as well. They felt that the dismissal of contract medical and health personnel by the State government was not the right course of action.
The move could further weaken the public health system as well as erode public confidence in the government. The Centre is gearing up for a nationwide vaccination campaign as soon as the COVID-19 vaccine is made available, the leaders said.
The State would require a large number of medical and health for the effective implementation of the vaccination programme. The PAV leaders urged the government to recruit all the contract medical and health personnel, who have gained vast experience, under ‘permanent category’ and to engage them on duty immediately.
