Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 17: No dialysis could be conducted on 3rd consecutive day in Super Speciality Hospital (SSH), Jammu due to the ongoing indefinite strike of Need Based Workers (NBWs) of Mechanical Division of Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Jammu though other services were restored fully by making alternate arrangements by the Mechanical Division with the support of hospital administration.
According to hospital sources, all the essential services like supply of water as well as electricity and functioning of AC and Oxygen Concentrated plant were restored fully in SSH Jammu, which were worst affected with the strike, as out of about 65 employees who were managing these works 62 were Need Based Workers.
However, majority of the services except dialysis unit and lifts were today restored in the hospital by taking extra services of the three regular electricians and seven other persons including three security guards provided by the hospital administration to Mechanical Division till no permanent solution is found out to the crisis arisen due to the indefinite strike of Need Based Workers.
“We have restored all the essential services in the hospital except Dialysis unit and lifts, as highly skilled labour was needed to manage these affairs and we cannot take a chance by engaging unskilled labour, as the Dialysis machine is very costly and any fault may be occurred in the lifts anytime, which the unskilled worker cannot set right”, XEn, Mechanical Division, GMCH Jammu, Ashok Singh said.
On a question, he said that he had submitted a contingency plan to the Principal office a week before the Need Based Workers of the Division went on strike, demanding some manpower so that they can be trained to operate all these plants in the wake of strike. “However, I got no response from the Principal office. Had they provided the manpower to us, we would have trained them even in running Dialysis unit, which is most affected now”, the XEn added.
When contacted, Medical Superintendent, SSH Jammu, Dr KD Singh, said that everything is normal now and hopefully dialysis unit will be made functional from tomorrow morning, as we have identified a hospital employee who can run the dialysis unit.
Principal, GMCH Jammu, Dr Zahid Gillani, said that as soon as the inquiry report of the committee constituted by his office to assess the creation of Mechanical Division and its staff distribution, number of Need Based Workers engaged and wages distributed to them, comes everything will be sorted out. He alleged that the present strength of 102 Need Based Workers in Mechanical Division is more than the actual labour they need to run the affairs and hence the extra labour will be shunted out once the report of the committee comes.
When contacted, Chief Engineer (CE), Mechanical Engineering Department (MED), Deepak Razdan, said that he is himself supervising the situation in SSH and their XEn, AEE, AEs and JEEs are on the job day and night, as a result of which all the services have been restored in the hospital. “Even, they are on the job to make functional the dialysis unit and hopefully it will be made possible from tomorrow but as far as lifts are concerned, we cannot take the risk with unskilled workers”, the CE added.
On a question whether the present strength of Need Based Workers in the Mechanical Division of GMCH is more than the actual workers needed, Razdan said that if the Principal Office is of that view they can terminate the services of these workers but before that their pending wages would have to be cleared, as we cannot do injustice with these poor workers.
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