Kathmandu, September 9 :

In order to pressurise the government to fulfil the demands forwarded by the paramedics, the paramedics today announced to organise a protest rally from health ministry and gherao Singha Durbar tomorrow.

Bhagirath Baniya, co-ordinator of joint struggle committee, said the protest was to pressurise the government to raise the issue of endorsing the health regulation Act.

“It is just for a short period of time as we are dealing with the lives of so many people but the government at least has to endorse the health regulation,” said Baniya, adding: “The more the government delays the programme, the more the people will suffer.”

The non-gazetted staffers such as the Assistant Health Worker, the Auxillary Nurse Midwife, the laboratory assistants were promoted only once in 1997 and since then there has been no increment in salaries and no training has been imparted to those who wanted to compete for other posts.

The paramedics have announced to halt all the medical services except emergency services to be effective from September 8 for an indefinite period till their charter of 10 demands are met.

The health workers announced the protest programme after the agenda related to health workers under the health service act (amendment 2006) was not discussed in a series of cabinet meeting held recently.

There are more than 26,000 such assistant fourth level health workers like Auxiliary Health Workers (AHW), Auxiliary Nursing and Midwife (ANM), dark room assistant, cold chain assistant, laboratory assistant and malaria inspector.