LAHORE: The protest of Lady Health Workers (LHW) at Charing Cross Chowk has entered its fourth day as the Punjab government is yet to meet their demands.
Meanwhile, the Lahore waste management staff has remained unable to clean the roads due to the protest, leading to significant amount of trash heaping around the vicinity.
Although the number of protesters has gone down, the lady health workers are continuing the sit-in till a service structure is signed by Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
On March 26, hundreds of female employees of the health department demanding service structure and up-gradation of their Basic Pay Scales (BPS) under the banner of National Program Health Employees Association Punjab (NPHEAP) staged a sit-in outside the Punjab Assembly on Monday.
Explaining the 16-point charter of demand, Rozeena Khan, a LHS who came all the way from the Khanewal district, told Pakistan Today that they were demanding immediate service structure for over 50,000 employees of their association, and the government must promote LHS to grade 14 while LHWs should be promoted to grade 7 and drivers must be given grade 5 according to their qualification and expertise.
Parveen Akhtar, an LHW, who had come from the Jehlum district, told this scribe that all the LHWs of her district had not received their salaries for the past four months and the government was reluctant to clear their arrears pending since 2012.
On Tuesday, over a dozen lady health workers (LHWs) fainted as the ongoing protest demonstration of hundreds of female employees of the health department outside the Punjab Assembly on entered the second day.
As per the details, several LHWs were shifted to nearby hospitals as they collapsed while staging their sit-in for the second consecutive day on Mall Road under the banner of the National Program Health Employees Association Punjab (NPHEAP) and their negotiations with the health department are still unsuccessful.
Speaking to Pakistan Today, NPHEAP President Rukhsana Anwar said that as many as 15 of her colleagues fainted on Tuesday and one of them was in critical condition at a hospital in Lahore.
