Unpaid workers in a public hospital

It's unthinkable that dozens of people are employed without any pay at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital for years (ranging from at least five to 15 years). They survive solely on tips from the patients and the attendants. A similar situation can be found of employees in other departments, too. No hospital—let alone the country's premier public hospital—can function like this.

A new burn institute, established close to the existing burn unit, is expected to employ 2,100 staff including those who have worked in the previous facility but they do not include anyone in the lowest tier.

While the coordinator of the newly built burn institute said that there's an ongoing process to regularise them, similar promises were made many times before, only to be broken. Therefore, the existing irregular workers have resorted to protests as they do not feel assured about being incorporated as normal staff.

These workers need to be regularised firstly because it's an injustice that one should work without pay for such a long period of time—that too in a large public facility. Secondly, such a practice doesn't serve the patients at all and runs contrary to the idea of free service provided by public institutions. 

We find it absurd that the health ministry reportedly is in favour of continuing to "outsource" people who work as Class IV employees at the institute without any pay instead of recruiting them through a proper process. The government needs to understand that the work that these workers do is very important and oftentimes life-saving. Their contribution needs to be recognised and they must be properly compensated in order to build an institute that is truly professional.