NHM Strike Holds Patients Hostage as Healthcare Workers Escalate Demands

Srinagar, KNT: The prolonged strike by National Health Mission (NHM) employees across Jammu and Kashmir has entered its second week, with the repeated extensions of the agitation putting additional pressure on the public healthcare system and forcing authorities to rearrange available manpower to keep essential services running.

The NHM employees, numbering more than 12,000 according to their association, began the strike on September 9 and have since extended it several times. The latest extension, announced on September 17, will continue for another 72 hours from September 18. Their demands include regularization, pay revision, job security, retirement and social-security benefits and other service-related issues.

Whatever the merits of the employees’ service-related demands, the decision to continue withdrawing from healthcare duties has consequences beyond the employees and the government. The Directorate of Health Services Kashmir has had to instruct Medical Superintendents, Block Medical Officers and heads of institutions to reorganise manpower and duty rosters and ensure that OPDs, IPDs, emergency services, labour rooms, operation theatres, diagnostics and pharmacies continue functioning.

The government’s concern is particularly significant because NHM personnel work across health sub-centres, primary and community health centres, district hospitals and various national health programmes. Reports have also indicated an impact on the National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme during the agitation.

Health and Medical Education Minister Sakeena Itoo has repeatedly asked the striking employees to return to duty, describing healthcare as a sensitive responsibility and saying the government is examining their grievances. On September 12, she warned that continued protests could leave the government with little choice but to take action, while acknowledging that the absence of NHM personnel was affecting patient care.

Yet instead of returning to work while negotiations continue, the employees have repeatedly extended the strike. Their latest communication again described the agitation as peaceful and democratic and said there was no concrete, time-bound resolution of their demands.

The agitation has also increasingly drawn political involvement. Apni Party leaders visited protesting NHM employees in Batamaloo on September 12, while party president Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari spoke to protesters over the phone and assured them of support. Congress leaders have also joined an NHM protest in Pulwama and expressed solidarity with the employees.

Sources told the news agency Kashmir News Trust that striking employees have also been approaching different political leaders and seeking their participation and support against the government. Such political mobilization has added another dimension to what began as a dispute over employment conditions.

For patients, however, the distinction between an employment dispute and a political campaign offers little relief when healthcare workers are unavailable. The Health Directorate’s decision to redistribute regular staff across emergency, inpatient, outpatient, labour-room, operating-theatre and diagnostic services itself reflects the additional pressure created by the prolonged absence of NHM personnel.

The employees maintain that they have exhausted administrative channels and that previous assurances failed to produce a concrete settlement. The government, meanwhile, says it is examining the issues within its jurisdiction and has taken up matters requiring intervention from the Centre.

The immediate question, therefore, is not only when the government will resolve the employees’ demands, but how long patients should continue to bear the consequences of a dispute involving a workforce performing essential healthcare functions.

A prolonged strike in the health sector inevitably shifts part of the burden onto patients, doctors and regular government staff who have to compensate for the manpower shortage. Whatever the eventual outcome of the NHM employees’ demands, continued disruption of healthcare services places those seeking treatment in a position where they have little say in a dispute that directly affects their access to care. [KNT]