The state government-owned Pandit Bhimsen Joshi (Tembha) Civil Hospital in Bhayandar is running without sanitation workers, raising a serious question about the safety and hygiene of patients, doctors, para-medical staff and even visitors.
Apart from recruiting medical staffers, the state government is yet to fill the sanctioned posts of 44 sanitation workers, after their services were discontinued in Oct 2022.
Currently, as a stop-gap arrangement, five sanitation workers have been hired on the virtue of patient welfare funds by the hospital committee. “It is unfortunate that, despite our requests and appeals, the existing on-roll and contractual employees never receive their wages on time. If this trend continues we will be forced to stop work,” said Sultan Patel, the office bearer of Vivek Pandit-led Shramjeevi Sanghatna, which had also launched a 'bheek maango' (begging) agitation to draw the attention of the state government authorities towards the issue.
Notably, the technical and non-technical employees who have been hired on contract basis threatened to go on strike on Monday (Jan 16) over non-payment of salaries for the past three months.
