Binika Journalist Association Threaten To Intensify Protest Over Doctor Vacancies

Bhubaneswar: Members of Binika Journalist Association, who are staging a dharna due to the dearth of doctors and other medical professionals in Binika Community Health Centre (CHC) and three other Primary Health Centres (PHCs) under Binika block of Sonepur since last 21 days, have threatened to intensify the protest as their demands are yet to be heeded.

“We will not sit quietly until our demand is fulfilled. The movement can lead to a more intensified mass agitation if the demands are not heard and necessary action to fill up the vacancy is assured”, said secretary of Binika Journalist Association Srujan Kumar Panda.

Despite the growing support of the various civil society organizations and political parties and citizen groups for such demand, it’s disheartening to witness the apathetic attitude of District administration. Even if there is the government provisioning of 89 positions of medical professionals including doctors in Binka CHC and three PHCs in Sankara, Bankighirdi and Mahadevpali, 43 positions are still lying vacant including doctors from a long time which hits the public life badly, Panda added.

“A memorandum was submitted to the district collector in this regard, but nothing brought fruit as assured. Binka Bandh also came out successfully conducted with huge support from the public as this problem persists from the last four years. Importantly, the information of such vacancy was also not showing online until the agitation took a mass movement and there is a smell of political conspiracy involved for such negligence that’s why the local and district administration is behaving unruly towards resolving this issues. We will continue our fight until the demands are fulfilled. We urge the Chief Minister and the state health department to consider our just demand as a priority and fill up the vacancy position. Otherwise, this movement will further be intensified to a larger level, he added.