Health secretaries demand reduction of workload

Health secretaries staging a protest demanding that their workload be decreased, at Dharna Chowk in Vijayawada.
| Photo Credit: K.V.S. GIRI

Around 400 ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwives), coming under the purview of the village and ward secretariats in the State, staged a protest at Dharna Chowk in city on Thursday, demanding that the workload be decreased.

While there are around 18,000 ANMs in the State, most of them, around 13,500, fall under the purview of the village and ward secretariats and are called health secretaries, and the remaining fall under the purview of Medical and Health Department.

This means, health secretaries report both to secretariats and medical officers, while the remaining 4,000 ANMs report to only medical officers, explained A.P. United Village and Ward Health Secretaries Welfare Association honorary advisor A.V. Nageswara Rao.

For the past three years, the health secretaries have been trying in vain to bring to the notice of officials about the work pressure they are being subjected to, Mr. Nageswara Rao said. “Those working at secretariats are expected to carry out work related to not just the medical and health field, but are also burdened with works meant to be done by secretaries of other departments,” he added.

As part of their daily duties, ANMs participate in health surveys, inquire about people’s health in their areas, distribute medicines, among others. In addition to these, health secretaries said that they are being tasked with the responsibility of distributing pension to beneficiaries and carrying out sanitation-related and household surveys.

Overworked and burned out, many of them have been staging State-wide protests for the past three years to highlight their plight, Mr. Nageswara Rao said, adding that despite clear instructions from Health Chief Secretary M.T. Krishna Babu to not task them with additional responsibilities, ground-level staff have continued to do so.

The association president, A. Madhavi, said that their other demands, including merger into the Health and Medical Department, provision of uniforms, provision of another option for Facial Recognition System for those who are travelling on work, among others.