Contract paramedical staff in Hyderabad held a protest on Tuesday outside Rail Nilayam in Secunderabad. They demanded that all contract medical staff who were laid off be reinstated immediately. The staff pointed out that they had been working in various railway hospitals in the Twin Cities divisions and were facing many problems. They had been working since 2005, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, but were terminated from their services without any recognition of their valuable work.
One of the terminated staff members said that they had been struggling to make ends meet for several months. They called on the railway department to reinstate all the laid off contract medical staff immediately. The staff also asked for the recruitment process through the Government e-Marketplace (GeM portal) to stop and for the regularization process of contract staff services to begin without any delay. They also demanded that the privatization of railway hospitals be stopped.
The protest was an effort by the contract paramedical staff to highlight their plight and to get their demands heard by the railway department. The staff members hope that their demands will be met soon and that they will be able to return to work.
