Ministry of Health suspends 18 health workers for obstructing Polio vaccine program

KATHMANDU, March 5: Ministry of Health on Sunday suspended 18 health workers, including three district health office chiefs, on the charge of obstructing the Polio vaccine administration program.

According to Pratap Paudel at the secretariat of Minister for Health Gagan Thapa, the suspended district chiefs are Dr Daya Shankar Lal Karna of Siraha, Nagendra Chaudhary of Saptari and Sachchitananda Dev of Dhanusha.

The ministry has asked all the suspended health workers to furnish their clarification within three days with answers why they obstructed the program, why were they involved in padlocking the essential service centers and why they didn't work in accordance with their official duty and involved in spreading nonsense through social media.

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"The action is taken as per the Health Service Act and regulations. Obstruction on sensitive program of Polio vaccine administration can not be tolerated. This is the beginning only," said Paudel.

Other suspended health workers are Chhedi Prasad (Saptari), Rajkumar Thapa (Bhaktapur), Bishnu Bahadur Chhetri (Kapilvastu), Surendra Raj Joshi (Kapilvastu), Birendra Kumar Mishra (Kapilvastu), Prithvi Chandra Bhagat (Sunsari), Mahesh Pokharel (Sunsari), Anil Kumar Pandeya (Parsa), Rajesh Prasad Rauniyar (Parsa), Sheshraj Dahal (Bhaktapur), Dev Narayan Sahu (Sunsari), Chhedi Prasad Yadav (Saptari), Top Bahadur Thapa (Kathmandu), Basudev Pokharel (Salyan), Ramesh Karki (Morang) and Sanjay Kumar Kafle (Morang).   

Polio vaccine administration program has been obstructed due to the protest of health workers in various districts. The program, which was not disturbed during the 10 years of insurgency, has been barricaded by the health workers themselves.

The health workers affiliated with different six trade unions and the senior health assistants, who were promoted despite of their non-eligibility, after the second people revolution, obstructed the program.

They padlocked the store of district public health office, warned the office head of physical assault, padlocked the office and protested in front of the office to disturb the program.