Health services in government health centres affected as pharmacists employed at the district hospital

NOIDA: Health services in government health centres were seriously affected as pharmacists employed at the district hospital, CHCs and PHCs across Gautam Budh Nagar went on a strike. Around 46 pharmacists deployed at the different government centres on a regular basis stopped work at the emergency, OPD at the centres including CHC Bhangel, Dadri, Dankaur, etc. Work was gravely affected at CHC Bhangel and district hospital and pharmacists could be seen jostling with policemen at the latter, where pharmacists refused to allow the authorities to break the lock of the pharmacy. Pharmacists had on Monday taken in possession keys of the pharmacies of some of these centres and the district hospital. A number of patients were seen waiting for medicines for around three hours even as patients reporting fever and other ailments continued to flow in. Some complained that they were being handed over wrong medicines as work was handed over to the contractual employees working at the hospital.


Chief Medical Superintendent NM Mathur had to call police to break the lock of the district hospital's pharmacy in the morning.

A team of policemen led by ASP Gaurav Grover and Sector 20 SHO Amarnath Yadav reached the spot and tried to intervene even as the pharmacists refused to budge saying that they would not allow the pharmacy to run. "We had instructions from the CMO to relent the strike. We understand that the patients are huge in number but our demands have been on hold for years now. Earlier too, the government said that they will meet our demands but nothing happened. We now want the Chief Minister to take cognisance of our demands," Kapil Chaudhary, state Joint Secretary, Diploma Pharmacists Association (DPA) told TOI.


He along with Sanjeev Sharma, district secretary (DPA) started an indefinite hunger strike after the hospital authorities started work at the pharmacy with police's mediation around noon. Sources told TOI that contractual employees from the private hospitals were roped in for disposal of services. Pharmacists say that the strike will continue till the chief minister's office takes action on their demands regarding wages and creation of more posts. The pharmacists are demanding creation of more regular posts saying that the number of regular pharmacists are disproportionate as compared to the rising number of patients.


"We have seven pharmacists and four chief pharmacists at district hospital. Only four of them work at pharmacy where thousands of patients turn up. Moreover, pharmacists are made to work at the OPD, post-mortem duty and emergency as well. The number is far lower than what is required," Sharma said. Chaudhary said that they are also demanding a raise in pay-scale as compared to the scale of diploma engineers and removal of anomalies of the seventh pay commission.


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