Community healthcare providers continue sit-in for 2nd day

Several hundred community healthcare providers on Sunday continued their sit-in programme for the second day demanding job nationalisation, reports UNB.
They started their sit-in holding banners, placards and festoons along the roads in front of the National Press Club on Saturday morning, according to a press release.
Earlier, the central committee of Bangladesh Community Healthcare Providers Association announced the work abstention programme at a press conference on January 18.
They are observing their programme under the banner of Bangladesh Community Healthcare Providers Association.
In 1996, the then Awami League government first initiated the community clinic service, but in 2001 it was shut down following changes in power in the country.
It also said that in 2008 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina launched community clinic again and after recruiting 13,500 providers in 2011 the services started to run in full swing.
The release also claimed that now the community-based healthcare project is over and 13,500 service providers are in uncertainty over their livelihoods and future because their service age for the government jobs has already exceeded.
The association demonstrated for several times and the prime minister and the health minister in 2016 assured them of nationalising their jobs within two weeks. But two years have passed, the promise is not yet translated into reality, it added.
If their demand is not met by January 31, they threatened to stage hunger strike from February 1 on the same venue.