Contract employees protest outside the office of State Health Society, Bihar, in Patna on Tuesday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Around 1 lakh contract employees of state-run hospitals went on a strike on Tuesday afternoon but withdrew it in the evening after successful talks with the health secretary.

The employees, including Ayush doctors, auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM), Asha workers, district programme managers, monitoring and evaluation officers, data entry officers, accountants and paramedical staff, under the banner of Bihar State Contractual Health Employees Association went on strike seeking regularisation of services.

Lalan Kumar Singh, the secretary of the association, said he met health minister Ramdhani Singh on Tuesday morning but nothing positive came out. “When we asked the health minister why the department cannot initiate the process to regularise services of staff on contract, he did not give any positive response. We have communicated to him that we would continue our strike till we get in writing from the health department that our services will be regularised,” he said.

Around 2,000 contract employees staged a dharna outside State Health Society, Bihar, in Sheikhpura. Contract employees working in primary health centres (PHC), additional primary health centres, referral hospitals, sub-divisional hospitals and health sub-centres in rural areas also took part in the strike.

Civil surgeon K.K. Mishra said: “There was a very little effect on the functioning of PHCs and referral hospitals because of the strike. We managed our work with the help of regular workers. However, if the strike continues, we would make an action plan to combat the situation. The immunisation programmes, which are mainly conducted by ANMs, are likely to get affected.”

However, the strike did not hamper services of medical college hospitals, as contract workers working there did not take part in the strike.

The contract workers withdrew their strike after successful talks with health secretary Anand Kishore on Tuesday evening.

Afroz Anwar, the chairperson of the association, said: “The health secretary told us that they have recently received a letter from the health ministry in which the department has been asked to create a health cadre for the managerial posts at PHCs and others. The health secretary has asked for three months’ time to create new posts and recruit contract workers. So we are going to withdraw our strike today.”

Elaborating on their demands, Anwar said: “Till our services are regularised, we want the formation of a human resource policy, exclusively for contract workers, according to which appraisals would be done on performance basis.”