LUDHIANA NEWS: Sacked, HIV+ Patients Demand Right To Work
LUDHIANA: At least 18 HIV-positive workers sacked from an AIDS centre – functioning under WHO grant – staged a rally here on Tuesday to protest against the Central and state health authorities.
Their services terminated on March 31, 2010, the outreach workers – 10 of them widows who have lost their husbands to AIDS – are today at a loss over how to keep the hearth burning as most of them were the sole breadwinners of the family.
They were working at the Integrated Conselling and Testing Centre (ICTC) for TB and AIDS patients run by the Punjab State AIDS Control Society at the Civil Hospital here since 2008. The funds for the centre come from the WHO via the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO).
According to sources, they were sacked by the Punjab government on directions from NACO, which has reportedly stopped the funds for outreach workers, though other categories of employees have been retained.
Their responsibilities included spreading awareness regarding AIDS prevention and treatment.
Demanding reinstatement, the sacked workers raised slogans against Punjab Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla and Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad.
One of the sacked women said: “As it is we are victims of social discrimination, now even the Health Department has abandoned us.”
Among the protesters were Sukhvir, a mother of two whose husband died of AIDS 10 years ago; Satinder Kaur with three children, widowed three years ago; and Rajinder Kaur, a mother of two daughters whose husband abandoned them seven years ago.
Bhavana; another affected women, said: ”We were serving on a salary of just Rs 3,000. Now even that has been denied to us. Being HIV infected, we need to take a good diet to fight the disease, and at the same time bring up our children. The department should reinstate all out reach workers and also increase their salaries.”
Mehar Singh, president of the Punjab Networking of Positive People Society, said:
“How could the WHO have stopped the grant for just NACO? It is not possible, the government is lying. An RTI application filed by us a month ago in this regard has also not been answered.”
The protesters later submitted a memorandum to Deputy Commissioner Rahul Tiwari, who assured them “every possible help”.
SOURCE-HT