Seeking immediate revocation of the termination orders of the staff nurses and other paramedical staff working in GMC Kathua, Rajouri and Doda, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh, JKNPP-Chairman & former Minister today threatened to launch a stir in their support in case the disengagement orders were not withdrawn by the government. The said staff nurses hitherto working in GMC Kathua, Rajouri and Doda had been duly appointed last year under SRO-24 and had been rendering their services even in critical times of Corona pandemic as frontline warriors, he stated. Is this time to disengage the health workers? Questioned Singh. While other states were providing incentives to the Health staff, enhancing their remuneration besides engaging the retired health professionals, the J&K govt. was most contemptuously terminating the services of existing health employees. Such kind of use and throw policy can’t be acceptable and runs counter to the concept of a welfare state, asserted Singh. He further observed that their termination at this Juncture not only amounts to deprivation of health services to the community but a grave injustice to the said govt. employees who had been engaged under due procedure laid down by the govt. He lambasted the concerned authorities for not responding to the repeated calls and protests of the agitating professionals. He was addressing a press conference in Jammu today.
Pointing towards another legal infirmity in the termination orders of the said para-medico and staff nurses, Mr. Singh said that Govt. had clearly discriminated between the same classes of appointees of the Health Department. He said that SRO-384 was issued by the Govt. in the past years on identical lines with exactly the same terms and conditions and the staff nurses and para-medicos engaged under the said SRO have been allowed to continue for the last around 10 years. But the termination of 181 similarly circumstanced counterparts of the said employees engaged under SRO-24 for meeting the staff requirements in GMCs of the erstwhile State is not only violative of Constitutional guarantees but speaks of vested interests of the helmsman. He said that extraneous considerations further become evident from fact that the H&ME Department had only last month issued notification under SRO-24 for appointment of 130 staff nurses for GMC Jammu. “If you still need the said category of Health workers in your institutions and are issuing fresh advertisements for the purpose, why termination of existing trained professionals” questioned Singh. Mrs. Manju Singh, State General Secretary-JKNPP was also present in the press conference.