108 Ambulance Staff Switched Off Mobiles in Eluru

The emergency 108 Ambulance services are interrupted following the sudden strike of the staff. The staff has switched off their mobile phones as the discussions with the union leaders and the contracting agency failed on Wednesday.,

The 108 Ambulance staff union leaders hold discussions with Bharat Vikas Grouop, the contracting agency on Wednesday morning. The discussions were failed as the contracting agency rejected the demands of the 108 staff. It is learnt that if the staff went on strike, action would taken up against them under ESMA, warned the contracting agency. However, on the call given by 108 employees’ union leaders, the vehicle pilots, Emergency medical technicians, all the staff switched off their mobiles from Wednesday evening at 4.00 PM and went on strike all over the state. The 108 ambulance employees made it clear that as per labour Act, they would attend duty for 8 hours.

108 Employees union President R Prasada Rao said that the management did not respond on our demands and in a can’t but position, decided to go on strike from 4.00 PM today all over the state. All mobiles of the 108 staff switched off their mobiles, he added. If the management come forward to discuss our demands we will attend the duties. If management rejected the demands, again went on strike, he stated.

The Ambulance service which introduced in 2004, has recruited staff and the GVK, GMR, EMRI groups are maintaining the services all over the state. Recently, the Government has entrusted the task to Bharat Vikas Group (BVG) to maintain the services. After the takeover by BVG group, the staff did not receive salaries over last three months. About 2,060 staff are working in the 108 emergency service and in West Godavari alone 149 pilots, para-medical staff. The staff is demanding the Government to treat them as medical and health employees as they are not getting the salaries regularly from the BVG group. They demanded the immediate payment of the arrears. About 35 ambulances are allotted to West Godavari district of which 10 vehicles were not running due to repairs. Following the strike of the Ambulance staff, the emergency services hit badly in the district. No call was received by the staff. The patients who are in need have to call other ambulances and cars bearing huge money.