Community health workers' strike steps into 3rd day

Community Health Care Providers (CHCPs) continued their hunger strike for the third day yesterday demanding nationalisation of their jobs.

Several thousand healthcare providers, who work at the grassroots level, stayed put in front of Jatiya Press Club in the capital. Some 40 of them fell sick during the strike and five of them were admitted to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

"We will continue our programme until our demands are met," said CHCP Vice President Md Suman Matbar.

Earlier, they staged demonstration for days in the same venue for realising their demands.

The Community Clinic Project, which began its operations in 1998, has 13,500 community healthcare providers working at the grassroots.

They say their salary and other facilities have not increased and they want their jobs to be under the revenue budget.

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in a meeting with them last week said the community clinics would be operated under a foundation that would be autonomous.

The CHCPs then would get salary hike and enjoy other facilities like those of the government jobs, said DGHS Director General Dr Abul Kalam Azad.

Operations of the community clinics under an autonomous body will provide more flexibility and dynamism in its services, he said.

Bangladesh CHCP Association, however, rejected the idea.

“The chain of command of the clinics would collapse if it is brought under the foundation,” said the association in a press release.